How can I be notified if a file has not been updated in a certain time?

Article ID: 208
Category: Scripts
Applies to: All Versions
Updated: 2019-07-25

You can launch the following VBScript through the application scheduler (e.g. every 1 minute) to be notified when a file has not been updated in X seconds.

Note: The file needs to be saved with the .vbs extension and called it through cscript.exe.

You can set the filename with the FILE_TO_CHECK variable, and the longest acceptable time the file may remain unchanged with the MAX_AGE_IN_SECONDS variable.


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' Checks when a file was last modified, useful if you need to ensure that a file
' (e.g. log file) is being updated and is not stale
' 
' Returns 0 if the file was modified recently, and 1 if the file was not recently
' modified. Check return code through %ERRORLEVEL%.

Option Explicit

'*****************************************************************************
'* DEFINE CONSTANTS
'*****************************************************************************
Const FILE_TO_CHECK = "C:\batch\test.txt"
Const MAX_AGE_IN_SECONDS = 180

'*****************************************************************************
'* DECLARE VARIABLES
'*****************************************************************************
Dim objShell, objExecObject
Dim FSO,File
Dim Date1,Date2,Hour1,Hour2,FileAge

'*****************************************************************************
'* Set environment and open output file
'*****************************************************************************
Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set File = FSO.GetFile(FILE_TO_CHECK)

Date1 = Now()
Date2 = File.DateLastModified

FileAge = DateDiff("s", Date2, Date1)

If FileAge > MAX_AGE_IN_SECONDS Then
    WScript.echo "File", FILE_TO_CHECK, "was modified more than", MAX_AGE_IN_SECONDS, "seconds ago, it was modified", FileAge, "seconds ago."
    WScript.Quit(1)
Else
    WScript.echo "File", FILE_TO_CHECK, "was modified", FileAge, "seconds ago."
    WScript.Quit(0)
End if


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