Inconsistent Dates in Explorer

[Guest]

I don't know if this is the right place to raise this question but here goes!

I've been trying to ascertain whether a client's DLLs are up to date
(specifically, Jet 4.0) and discovered inconsistencies in the date info in
Explorer - namely, numerous DLL files showed 'modified' dates that were
earlier than the 'created' dates!!. (Win 2000 Pro)

I guess that what's happening is that, on downloading a new version of a
dll, the 'created' date was being overwritten but the 'modified' date wasn't.
Any comments?

Also, while talking DLLs, in my innocence I'd assumed that DLL version
numbers would increase as they were modified. Yet (for example) the latest
Service Pack for Jet 4.0 (SP 8) includes v 3.60.8025.0 of dao360.dll, while
the customer has 3.60.8618.0 - and given the confusing dates referred to
above I'm not sure how long it's been there. Has an Office SP or hotfix
overtaken Jet SP8 or iis the dll version numbering in a state of confusion (I
certainly am!!).

Again, any comments?

 

[Gary Smith]

The creation date refers to the file itself and reflects the date and time
that the file was written to the disk. The modification date refers to
the contents of the file. When you copy a file, the target gets a current
creation date but the contents aren't modified, so the modification date
stays the same. If you move or rename a file on the same drive, it's
still the same file, so the creation date doesn't change.

Like you, I would expect that a higher version number would in all cases
mean a more recent version. I have version 3.60.8618.0 of dao360.dll on
my system, and it appears to have arrived with the Security Rollup. Prior
to that I had 3.60.6508.2, which was part of W2K SP4.

I don't know if this is the right place to raise this question but here goes!

I've been trying to ascertain whether a client's DLLs are up to date
(specifically, Jet 4.0) and discovered inconsistencies in the date info in
Explorer - namely, numerous DLL files showed 'modified' dates that were
earlier than the 'created' dates!!. (Win 2000 Pro)

I guess that what's happening is that, on downloading a new version of a
dll, the 'created' date was being overwritten but the 'modified' date wasn't.
Any comments?

 

[Guest]

Thanks Gary! That's cleared the issue of create & modification dates but I'm
still a bit unsure about the Jet4 SP8 issue. I guess the best advice would be
to hide away the current variants of the dlls that would be replaced
(especially those wirth higher version numbers) before installing the SP.

All the best

 

[Gary Smith]

Yeah, I'd make backups of the affected DLLs, install the SP, and watch to
see what happens.