Can't change the date or timestamp of a Folder

I am unable to get Advanced Renamer to change the date or time attribute of a folder. Is anyone else having this issue?

My simple test fails on two different computers, one running Win 10 and the other Win 11. I've tested with Advanced Renamer v4.11 and several earlier versions.
1. Pick a folder on a fixed NTFS drive with a Created date in the past. (Mine was a folder named 2024-01-01 with a creation and modified date of 01/01/2024.)
2. Open Advanced Renamer
3. Open Columns, Add Created Date and New Created Date columns.
4. Click the green plus button and add Timestamp method. (no other methods are selected)
5. Check the Created date box and Set to Now.
6. Drag and Drop a folder named 2024-01-01 into the Files window.
7. In the Add Folder dialog box, click on Add the folders and check the Add root folders box.
8. The tab changes to Folders, if not already on that tab.
9. The folder is listed with the original Created Date and the current date in the New Created Date column.
10. Click Start Batch and verify one Method and one Item in Batch Rename mode.
11. Click Start. Briefly see a dialog confirming 1 item and 0 errors, then file disappears.
12. Checking folder created date in Windows Explorer properties shows it did not change to the current date. (NOW)
13. Click add successful items adds the folder back to the list, but the displayed date is confirmed to be the original unchanged creation date.

Notes:
1. I can change the Created, Modified, and Accessed dates on this folder using a program called Attribute Changer without any problems.
2. I was able to get this test to work with Advanced Renamer v3.88.1 portable a couple of times, if the batch contains just one folder. Multiple folders always fail with an Error 101. After a few successful changes, it stopped working until I rebooted my PC, so it's really not very usable for me.

Reply to #1:

Hi Howard,

Since nobody's answered I thought I'd just tell you that I tried your experiment and it failed.

Not to take anything away from ARen or Kim (I hold them both in high regard, and I use the program pretty much every day), but I've never found the timestamp method to be very useful. Most all my time handling is to put a date in a foldername and then change the Windows Created date to that folder name date, and ARen has always either been unable to do that, as in v4.x, or it had to be done in a separate batch because the v3.x timestamp method wouldn't play nice with other methods. For the last several years I've been using another renaming program to do JUST the date stuff, and it works consistently and in a "flash". Otherwise I really don't like that program, for a number of reasons. And I've come to love javascript, so I'm more than happy with ARen otherwise.

Anyway, best of luck.
DF

Reply to #2:
Thanks, DF. At least I know it's not just me. I share your opinion about this program and the developers. I know every project has competing priorities, but I hope they find time to fix this broken feature.

My use case:
I normally sort folders for my project by Modified date, but if you add or delete anything inside an NTFS folder, it changes that folder's modified date, which spoils my sort order. So i I could really use a quick way to reset folder dates using a nice batch method to fix an entire set of folders at once.

Advanced Renamer solution:
The timestamp method with pattern matching would be a perfect solution for my use case. In fact, everything seems to work up to the point of actually committing the correct datestamp. Feels like this is just a bug and I would hope it could be resolved without a tremendous amount of effort.

My workaround:
II, too have another utility that lets me change the created, modifies, or accessed dates for a folder, but it doesn't have batch capabilities or pattern matching. So at this point, I just correct folders manually, one at a time.

Reply to #3:

Howard,

Drop me a line at [email protected], we can discuss it.

Best,
DF