Is it possible to prevent EntityFramework 4 from overwriting customized properties?

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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.

    private DateTime _createdOn;
    public virtual System.DateTime CreatedOn
    {
        get { return _createdOn; }
        set
        {
            _createdOn =
                (value.Kind == DateTimeKind.Unspecified)
                    ? _createdOn = DateTime.SpecifyKind(value, DateTimeKind.Utc)
                    : value;
        }
    }

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'".

Is there any way to tell EF to not generate that property and to let me handle it on my own?

Update

Thanks for everyone's answers...

I created a new custom property with a different name.

    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;
        }
    }

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.

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.

6 Answers
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