Creation Date/Last Modified Date [Question]

[smaragdus]

I have a question. When Set date and time of file from server response option is enabled but the server does not return date/time values I noticed different behaviour in Free Download Manager and HTTP Downloader:

• When I use Free Download Manager Creation Date = Last Modified Date (Creation Date = when the download was added, Last Modified Date = when the download was added);
• When I use HTTP Downloader Creation Date ≠ Last Modified Date (Creation Date = when the download was added, Last Modified Date = when the download was completed);

Screen:

Is this behaviour intentional? Don't you think that when a server does not provide time/date values Creation Date should be equal to Last Modified Date?

This is not of great importance, I am just curious what you think about that.

[erickutcher]

Technically speaking, every time a byte is written to the file, it's going to be modified. So the date/time should reflect that. The program doesn't actually set the date/time unless it's supplied by the server so anything you see is what Windows does naturally when a file is opened, written to, and closed.

[smaragdus]

@erickutcher

Thank you for the explanation. So it seems that the old version of Free Download Manager (3.9.1627) which I use as a secondary download manager in cases when HTTP Downloader encounters a problem with a certain download, somehow manages to set last modified date to be equal to creation date.

Thanks