title: Is it possible to prevent EntityFramework 4 from overwriting customized properties?
body: <p>I am using EF 4 Database first + POCOs. Because EF has no easy way to state that incoming DateTimes are of kind UTC, I moved the property from the auto-generated file to a partial class in another file.</p>
  
  <pre><code>    private DateTime _createdOn;
      public virtual System.DateTime CreatedOn
      {
          get { return _createdOn; }
          set
          {
              _createdOn =
                  (value.Kind == DateTimeKind.Unspecified)
                      ? _createdOn = DateTime.SpecifyKind(value, DateTimeKind.Utc)
                      : value;
          }
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, now every time I update the model, the automated properties get created again in the T4-generation. Of course this causes the following compilation error: "The type 'Foo' already contains a definition for 'CreatedOn'".</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way to tell EF to not generate that property and to let me handle it on my own?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong></p>
  
  <p>Thanks for everyone's answers...</p>
  
  <p>I created a new custom property with a different name.</p>
  
  <pre><code>    public virtual System.DateTime CreatedOnUtc
      {
          get
          {
              return (CreatedOn.Kind==DateTimeKind.Unspecified)
                  ? DateTime.SpecifyKind(CreatedOn, DateTimeKind.Utc)
                  : CreatedOn;
          }
          set
          {
              CreatedOn =
                  (value.Kind == DateTimeKind.Unspecified)
                      ? CreatedOn = DateTime.SpecifyKind(value, DateTimeKind.Utc)
                      : value;
          }
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I also set all of the setters and getters of the auto-generated property to Private with the exception of those properties that I needed to use in a Linq-to-Entities query (sigh). In those cases, I set those getters to internal.</p>
  
  <p>I sure wish there was a dropdown on DateTime types to specify what "Kind" of DateTime that EF should treat it as. That would have saved hours and the extra complication.</p>