When you click on a file and it says accessed does it mean you opened it

My employer is disciplining me for accessing a confidential file in word. They said I opened it and viewed the contents and I did not. They printed a report that said I opened the file because the column "accessed" said open which indicated to them I opened the file. How can I prove that I did not open it?

You say "in Windows".
Can you be more specific? How do you get to this window and what (exactly) are you clicking on? I don't believe I remember seeing anything say "accessed" from Windows, itself. If you're inside another program, then it probably does mean you opened a file, but without more information, I can't be sure.

They should be ashamed of themselves. If they have files that are restricted, they should make sure that no one can get to it. They should have encrypted it or put it in a share that others don't have access to.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, There's probably a log file somewhere that says you accessed a file. Log files aren't in the habit of lying. I think that it's likely that you may have done it -- possibly by accident, and possibly without knowing what you were doing. Just because you accessed it doesn't mean you read it.

Thanks Perito - for answering my question about accessing a file. I had a assignment from the supervisor in network to clean up personal folders on one of our network server, called the "H" drive, dedicated for users on our network to store their personal stuff like resume's,pictures,etc. This particular server was getting full and it was time for housecleaning. I clicked on user name and the folder display usage per folder. So I guess once a logfile prints on my activity it says that I access all folders they had listed in their H drive and that I opened their password protected docs. My employer hired forensics that proved that I did not crack the password to view contents but I did access the files which I could have look at, but they could not determine that. I was fired but now I'm trying to understand how this stuff works because I know my manager never wanted me on the network team, I was promoted to network from desktop suppoort and still training when I was fired. The manager of IT, not my supervisor was the guy who said I was opening the confidential files of the users.

They should be ashamed of themselves. If they have files that are restricted, they should make sure that no one can get to it. They should have encrypted it or put it in a share that others don't have access to.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, There's probably a log file somewhere that says you accessed a file. Log files aren't in the habit of lying. I think that it's likely that you may have done it -- possibly by accident, and possibly without knowing what you were doing. Just because you accessed it doesn't mean you read it.