Disable the NTFS Last Accessed Feature

Do you know that the default NTFS system for WinXP actually updates each file on when it was last accessed? Frankly, I can only see that it is useful if you wish to compress files which are not accessed frequently. Harddisks nowadays are quite cheap and I find this feature annoying.

Just imagine everytime you wish to open a file, it will always update the file property on when it was last accessed. Not only does it encourage frequent writing to the harddisk, I'm sure there is an impact on performance whenever files are opened, or even searched.

Do the following to disable this last access feature:

1. Goto Start > Run
2. Type cmd
3. Type fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

You will need to be in the administrator account in order to do this. That is all to it. To re-enable it, just type fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 0.

Note that fsutil is quite a useful command prompt utility. It can also do quota management.