Windows equivalent of the Linux command 'touch'?

If you want to touch the date stamp of a file using windows, use the following command at the command prompt:

copy /b filename.ext +,,

(where filename.ext is your file's name). The +,, is a special flag to copy telling it to simply update the date/time on the file:

* Changing the time and date of a file

If you want to assign the current time and date to a file without modifying the file, use the following syntax:

copy /b Source+,,

The commas indicate the omission of the Destination parameter.

Edit based on comments by Lumi and Justin: put this in a batch file, eg. touch.cmd

@COPY /B %1+,, %1

This works even if the file is not in the current directory (tested on Windows 7).

I've used and recommend unxutils which are native Win32 ports of lots of common Unix utilities. There is a touch command in there.

If all you want is to change the file's last modified date (which was my case):

C:\> powershell  (ls your-file-name-here).LastWriteTime = Get-Date