any help would be amazing thanks guys 
Private Sub Form1_FormClosing(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) Handles MyBase.FormClosing
My.Settings.closed = Date.Now
End Sub
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
My.Settings.closed = Date.Now
End Sub
Private Function Readfile(ByVal Filename As String)
Dim Read As String
Using r As StreamReader = New StreamReader(Filename)
Read = r.ReadToEnd()
End Using
Return Read
End Function
Private Sub WriteFile(ByVal FileName As String, ByVal WhatToWrite As String)
Using w As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(FileName)
w.Write(WhatToWrite)
End Using
End Sub
MsgBox(Readfile("C:\test.txt")) 'this will msgbox the Contents of C:\test.txt
WriteFile("C:\test.txt", My.Settings.closed) 'this will write the contents of My.Settings.closed to C:\test.txt
it turns out it was as easy as this
guess i should mess around with it alil more before askin for help haha but thanks guys 
Imports System.IO
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Label1.Text = System.IO.File.GetLastAccessTime("C:\mcdbp.log")
End Sub
End Class
Private Function GetModifiedDate(ByVal fileLocation As String) As Date
Return IO.File.GetLastWriteTime(fileLocation)
End Function
MsgBox(GetModifiedDate("C:\Test\Syntax.txt").ToShortDateString)