Prevent Microsoft from changing the Date Modified of a folder when files within the folder are opened but not modified.

Question

I would like to prevent my folders from updating in the “Date Modified” field every time that I open a file contained within the folder.  Using Word 2013, Windows 7, PC.

My files and folders exist on a shared drive within my office so other people open them often, but I would like the folders to only reflect when actual changes have been made to the contents within the folders so that I do not have to go into every folder to check if any files were actually altered when I am misled by the “Date Modified” field telling me that a folder's contents have been altered. 

The issue I am experiencing is that I can open a file within one of my folders and view the document in Word or Excel, but then make no changes and exit without saving, and it will still update the folder to that day’s date.  If I open a pdf in Adobe and close without saving, the folder's "Date Modified" field does not change.  So it seems to be specific to files that are opened with Microsoft programs (although, we do not have many other file types or programs that we use to view files, so I cannot experiment with different mediums very easily).

I know that Microsoft writes a temporary file when a file is opened in a Microsoft program in order to save changes in the event of a crash of the program used to view the file, and then it deletes that temporary file once the file is closed, which technically acts as a ‘change’ to a file housed in the folder, thus changing the Date Modified on the folder. 

However, my colleague’s folders do not act this way.  She can open her files in Microsoft programs, close them without saving, and the folder date does not change.  And our files and folders are housed on the same shared drive.  Her folders maintain the proper “Date Modified” until a file within on of her folders has actually been modified and saved by a user.

Our auto recovery file locations in Word are the same, except our usernames are different- C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word.  I have hidden files displayed as a setting in my Windows Explorer folders and she does not.  Is that it?  I’ve tried disabling thumbnails on my folders as suggested in this post (just in case my issue was related to this person’s issue)- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/can-i-prevent-the-folders-modified-date-from/8a5dee05-231a-42e9-be3e-4397853dd9e4, but that did not work.  I am not sure if our Microsoft programs/operating systems are saving temporary files in different locations thus causing the inconsistency between our systems, but I cannot figure it out.

What is different about her setup?  What can I do to mine to make it behave this same way?  Thank you!

Answer 1

Still looking for help with this if anyone can provide some tips.  Thank you!