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I have a MS Word document which has been provided to me in email - when I saved it I noticed the files creation and modified date and time are identical and is months after the file was created.

I have tried a load of ways of recreating this by copy and pasting and opening a file and "saving as" within MS Word but when I do this, the modification date remains as the previous date and time and a new creation date is simply added to the new file.

How can this occur:

Properties > details > origin - creation: 1st Jan 2000 @ 10:00

Properties > details > origin - modified: 1st Jan 2000 @ 10:20

Properties > details > file - creation: 1st Feb 2000 @ 15:00

Properties > details > file - modified: 1st Feb 2000 @ 15:00

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These properties are next to meaningless and easily manipulated. Why do you care?

(They do have some meaning, just not what you might expect from the labels.)

I believe I can get this by saving a document received as an attachment. The date created is the date and time the file (not its content) was created on the instant computer.

Here is from a brand new document I started today in which I did no typing. I just created it and saved it. Note the creation date.

screenshot of properties

Here is another showing Total editing time.

enter image description here

I can guarantee that this is not what it seems. It is saying how long was the document open on a computer where a save was done after it was open. It does not mean the document was being edited or looked at. It does not even mean that there was a person in front of the keyboard.

I just made a copy of that file in Windows and checked its properties. This is what it says in general properties:

screenshot of properties

Under the details tab, in Windows, we see something different:

screenshot of properties - different tab

For forensic purposes these are meaningless.

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  • Cross-posted at answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/… For cross-posting etiquette, please read: A Message to Forum Cross-Posters web.archive.org/web/20201027004017/https://www.excelguru.ca/… secrets rules.
    – Charles Kenyon
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 2:06
  • Firstly, I want to acknowledge your comment here and on MS re cross-platform posting - I did not know this was a thing, I was just trying to get help. My apologies for that, I would not like to be wasting anyone's time.
    – George Lamb
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 7:52
  • I am not sure how to proceed - is it just a case of making everyone aware or should I remove one of the threads?
    – George Lamb
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 8:05
  • Thank you for taking the time to reply to both here and at MS. I am trying to recreate this. So, I want to have a file which I created yesterday and which shows properties origin as yesterday, but file create and modify as today - when I copied it. When I open the file and SaveAs (as your example above) it only changes the creation date and keeps the modified date as yesterdays timestamp. When I email it to myself and SaveAs without opening it, it does not generate today's date and time in either the creation or modified timestamp.
    – George Lamb
    Commented Mar 30, 2021 at 8:10

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