Date Modified Changes When I Play Music

An anonymous reader asks, "Windows Media Player changes the modified date of a song every time it is played. How do I stop this?"

In order to prevent changes to the last modified date, open Windows Media Player, go to Tools/Options from the menu, and click the Library tab. Uncheck the box next to Retrieve additional information from the Internet.

The downside to this is the software will no longer automatically look for album info about the files each time the song is played.

To retain your ability to sort by date and have Windows Media Player download the album info (not to mention use the album rating feature), leave the box checked. Open Windows Explorer and add Date Created to the list of detail fields for your music files. When you do your sort, sort by created date, instead of modified date, and you still get an accurate snapshot of recent changes to your music collection.