Damn - I've done some reading and I don't know that the lastAccessed attribute is really suitable for determining when a program was last run. If anyone would like this feature, I am open to suggestions as to how to accomplish it, but it has to work "out of the box" on Win2000 and up and also 64bit versions...
It also seem's a bit weird... This morning I HAVE NOT STARTED Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access, yet when I ran the script it showed that the lastAccessed date for those files was 8:50:xx this morning. This was not when I signed on (that was earlier), it was not when I ran the script (that was later). Seem's it just is not reliable enough
For now I think I'll leave this out of OAv2 - unless we can create a suitable solution. A shame because it would be very useful.
[quote]That all changed with Windows 95.
When listing files Windows Explorer, part of Windows 95 and later, opens each file to extract icons for the directory display and in the process updates the last accessed attribute, rendering it useless as a file management tool. This problem has existed in Windows at least up to and including Windows XP.Windows Vista turned off the updating of the last accessed attribute to save system resources. In Windows 7 it is also off by default, but can be re-enabled from the command line with the following command:
fsutil behavior se disablelastaccess 0
When enabled on Windows 7, Windows Explorer seems to handle the last accessed attribute correctly.
To take advantage of this attribute you need to make sure Windows XP and earlier versions are removed from your networks. You also need to make sure your applications handle this attribute correctly. A few antivirus, anti-malware and backup software packages still reset this attribute. By making sure your utility software, applications and client operating systems don’t interfere you can regain the value this attribute offers.