How do you disable the "last accessed" attribute on NTFS/Windows?

Solution 1:

fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

But be careful, some program (especially backup programs) might need this.

Solution 2:

The HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate (docs) registry entry is a REG_DWORD that can be:

• 0: update the last-access timestamp, and record each change in the NTFS log (default)
• 1: don't update the last-access timestamp, and don't record time stamp updates in the NTFS log

Whether it makes much difference is debatable.

JR