I'm a brand newbie. I tried to build a filter that finds all files in a volume that haven't been accessed after a specific date. Tried using Accessed with the Match & No Match parameters. This didn't produce desired results.
Am I going in the wrong direction here with how Directory Opus works?
Thanks
William Wilson
Sounds like you are doing the right thing, although it's difficult to be sure without seeing the actual filter you made.
You don't need to create a filter at all, though, since the Simple find panel/window lets you search by Accessed time. Set the Date and/or Time drop-downs to something other than Ignore and you'll get the choice of searching by Created, Modified or Accessed timestamps. (See below for a screenshot.)
If you still don't see what you expect, check the Accessed timestamps of the files to see if they are what you expect. Accessed timestamps are generally useless because of two reasons: 1) Files get accessed 'unintantionally' all the time to read their icons or other internal attributes. If you have the Description column on then chances are all your files are being accessed every time you open their directory. 2) Filesystems tend to be lazy about updating accessed timestamps and may only update them for files which have not already been accessed in the past day, or not even store them at all.
Hi leo,
how do you get the shown find dialog to display the find results in a new tab? My Find window looks complete different! Is this a Vista thing? Or do have to customize my lister? I noticed you have also the Synchronize and Duplicate dialog.
Any hint would be appreciated.
Thanks
xbprm
Use Tools -> Find Panel instead of the separate Find Window.
Leo
Thanks so much for the reply. That was good info on how the Accessed parameter is calculated. I've gone through and checked a number of files that haven't been modified in years, but have all been accessed March 31 between 5 and 6 am. Is it possible the backup system accessing the file is changing the Accessed parameter? That or a scheduled AV scan. I know this is outside the question of how Directory Opus works, but I'd appreciate any info that you would have.
I tried using the Simple view and picked Accessed but it appeared that I could only go back to a point in time that same day. I switched to the Advanced view and built a filter. Attached is a screenshot of my filter.
Thanks
awilson
It is possible that they are changing the timestamps, yes. They may also be opening the files in a special way which doesn't modify the timestamps, or restoring the timestamps afterwards, but it's possible they are modifying them as well.
The Simple view has separate Date and Time drop-downs. Sounds like you only changed the Time one. You can use either of both of them if you need to.
The filter looks fine, although I think the second line is redundant as it's doing the same thing as the first line.
Leo,
Thank you again for your help. It is greatly appreciated. My mistake on the Date field; I missed that!
I guess the file property that would really help us accomplish what we need is the last time a file was opened, but that doesn't appear to be something you can isolate with a Windows file.
Regards,
awilson
