Windows – Copying folders in Windows 7 without changing created/modified date

Not quite one step, but if you go into Details view you can right click on the header and get a context menu.

By default "Date" is checked, but "Date Created" and "Date Modified" are present but unchecked. So uncheck "Date" and check "Date Modified".

This will apply to all the pictures folders.

I think the "Date" as "Date Created" only applies to the Pictures library. My Documents library has "Date Modified". Perhaps the thinking is that most users won't be editing their photos so sorting by date modified would be the same as date created. However, as I don't work for Microsoft that's pure speculation.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has blocked all possibilities for displaying the seconds.

Windows Explorer now ignores any such specification coming from the system date format, and this is done on the code-level, so any fix will need to directly patch the binary explorer.exe, which is not recommended.

On the other hand, Microsoft has also decided to cancel the possibility for Explorer add-ons to create new columns (link), so even that way is now blocked, or such a solution would have surely existed by now.

There is simply no solution possible when using Windows Explorer, so you need to turn to third-party products, of which there is a large choice available.

See the article Best Free File Manager for a whole list of such alternatives to Explorer, with reviews. There are too many to list here, not only since product recommendations are not allowed on our site, but since choosing one over the others is more a matter of personal preference.

Using a third-party product will also solve the problem for all Windows versions. Even where installation is impossible, quite a number of these products are also available as a portable app that you may carry around with you.