Windows 7, file properties, date modified, how do you show seconds?
Solution 1:
I found a solution at http://www.nicholasoverstreet.com/2010/03/windows-7-annoyance-file-properties/.
Go to 'Control Panel' → 'Region and Language' → 'Additional Settings' → Date tab.
Remove the string dddd
(e.g. change it to ddd
) click 'Apply' and it should work fine.
Explanation:
'Rightclick file properties' uses the value "Long Date" + empty_space + "Long Time"
. Long date is 'dddd, d MMMM yyyy' by default, and 'Long Time' is h:mm:ss tt
. However, it looks like as long as you have the string dddd
in 'Long Date', it may sometimes ignore your 'Long Time' settings, overriding it with "x minutes ago".
Solution 2:
I've been looking at the same problem and as far as I can tell, no there isn't a way.
However, I've been using a workaround that has satisified what I needed it for so hopefully it will help you. The following command, when run from a command line in the directory in question, will print out the file names and the modified date down to seconds:
forfiles /c "cmd /c echo @file @ftime"
I hope that might be of some use to people.
Solution 3:
You can view the file creation/modification time quickly in PowerShell:
PS C:\Users\mskfisher> $file = C:\windows\notepad.exe
PS C:\Users\mskfisher> $file = Get-Item C:\windows\notepad.exe
PS C:\Users\mskfisher> $file.CreationTime
Monday, July 13, 2009 6:56:36 PM
PS C:\Users\mskfisher> $file.LastAccessTime
Monday, July 13, 2009 6:56:36 PM
PS C:\Users\mskfisher> $file.LastWriteTime
Monday, July 13, 2009 8:39:25 PM
Inspired by a TechNet blog post using PowerShell for some other crazy tricks.
Solution 4:
It's important to note that Windows does show seconds. The hiding of seconds only happens in the main Explorer window:
But Andrew wasn't asking about the main Explorer window, he was asking about the the Right-click -> Properties dialog, which does show seconds:
If it works on Properties, why not in the main window?
The reason you don't see seconds, is that it was a usability decision to remove them (99% of users don't care about the second a file was last modified).
To accomplish this, the shell team is calling GetTimeFormatEx, using the flag asking for it to remove seconds:
GetTimeFormatEx(..., TIME_NOSECONDS, ...);
which returns the Short time format::
with any seconds (ss
)1 stripped out.
1Even though the default en-US locale does not specify ss in the Short time format; TIME_NOSECONDS
will remove any ss
even if there was. Nor would i obey that command even if you were.
Edit: If you want to see the time a file was modified (down to the second), then use the Windows GUI. It shows you the time a file was modified (down to the second):
If you don't want to use the Windows GUI to see the time a file was modified (down to the second), then don't use it.
Edit 3/26/2015: The Windows UI will always show the modified time down to the second - even if the file has been modified very recently:
Edit 1/28/2016: Included Windows 10 screenshot to show that Windows 10, like Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, do show seconds.