Is there a way to check when a file was last accessed on your PC?

[Meowster]

right click and pressing Properties seems to not work... it shows you the time that it was last accessed as being the time when you checked the properties. Clever. ¬¬

[MrColossal]

sort folder by details and then sort by last accessed?

[LimpingFish]

That might only work for "last modified".

Hmm. In Vista you can add "Date Accessed" to items in a folder, using "Sort By...", but it doesn't seem to do anything.

[Meowster]

yeah, colossal and limpingfish... I tried what you both suggested, but after testing the files myself (by opening them in different orders) it made absolutely no difference to the order in which they were displayed.

Also checking when they were last accessed gives you the current date and time, as it considers you checking them to be the "last time" you accessed them.

At this point I'm more just kind of curious if Windows is really that retarded.

[tube]

At this point I'm more just kind of curious if Windows is really that retarded.

Yes it is. NTFS filesystems have access time "resolution" of one hour by design, meaning that the time will not be updated unless it's been an hour since the last update. AFAIK Vista even has access time updates disabled completely to slightly enhance filesystem performance. The updates can be turned back on via the registry (and off in XP) but as I said, depending on the filesystem you might or might not get accurate information.