Change the "modified date" of a folders (in possibly powershell)

Question

From time to time, when I force-shutdown a Windows Server 2003 machine (I have no choice), the folders contained in a certain directory all change their 'modified date' to the current date.

Luckily, inside each of these folders, the files are all with the correct 'modified date'.

One of these files I want to copy the "modified (or created) date" with is a .jdf file that each of the folders has inside.

I need help to create a script in PowerSell.

I found this PS1 script that almost does the job:

Get-ChildItem $root | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer} | Foreach-Object{

# get the oldest file for the current directory object
$oldest = Get-ChildItem $_.FullName | Sort-Object LastWriteTime | Select-Object LastWriteTime -Last 1

if($oldest)
{
# oldest object found, set current directory LastWriteTime
$_ | Set-ItemProperty -Name CreationTime -Value $oldest.LastWriteTime 
$_ | Set-ItemProperty -Name LastWriteTime -Value $oldest.LastWriteTime
}
else
{
# current directory is empty, directory LastWriteTime is left unchanged
Write-Warning "Directory '$($_.FullName)' is empty, skiping..."
}
}

The problem is that the last modified object inside the folders sometimes are subfolders that also get the current date as 'modified date'. How can I make it look the files inside the folder and not the folders?

Answer 1

Try this:

Get-ChildItem $root |
    Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer } |
Foreach-Object{
    
    $oldest = Get-ChildItem $_.FullName |
        Where-Object { ! $_.PSIsContainer } |
            Sort-Object LastWriteTime |
    Select-Object -Last 1

    if($oldest)
    {
        $_ | Set-ItemProperty -Name CreationTime -Value $oldest.LastWriteTime 
        $_ | Set-ItemProperty -Name LastWriteTime -Value $oldest.LastWriteTime
    }
    else
    {
        # current directory is empty, directory LastWriteTime is left unchanged
        Write-Warning "Directory '$($_.FullName)' is empty, skiping..."
    }
}

Answer 2

Whereas Get-ChildItem $root -directory gives the same result as

Get-ChildItem $root | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer}

you could try (I don't know PS verbose syntax)

Get-ChildItem $root -file

or even

gci $root -file

Not sure whether your script remainder needs improvement...