"Alan Baker" wrote

| Otherwise, when is it created? You write an essay,
| copy it elsewhere, rewrite that file, eventually have
| a second file that bears no commonality at all with the
| first... To say it was created when the first file was
| created wouldn't make sense. You're then attaching
| the creation to a theoretical file rather than to a
| specific digital item. Creation time would then
| always have to trace back to when a new file was made.
| And if copying is not creation, what about recompiling?
| Were all copies of all versions of the Windows kernel
| created in 1992 or 1995 or some such just because there's
| been a kernel32.dll file in existence during all that time?
|
| But the creation date is just data that one can change.

Yes. It's all just data that one can change, stored by
the file system. None of it's in the file. The only reason
you can install a program and get accurate lastMod dates
is because installers set that based on data stored in the
installer. Otherwise it wouldn't transfer.

There's no security or restriction on that, assuming
that the calling process has write "permission" on the file.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85%29.aspx

Traditionally the creation time is when a specific file
was created. If it's a copy of another file that doesn't
matter. Every shell32.dll wasn't created in 1992. Each
was created when it was instantiated as a unique digital
item.