Why did WinXP change the timestamps on my files by 1 hour?!!!

[Robert Macy]

And what to do about it!

I did not notice when I copied 1700 files onto the WinXP machine that
the OS changed the time stamp by 1 hour ahead.

for example, instead of
2/17/2007 7:45 PM
each file has the time incremented like
2/17/2007 8:45 PM

which makes all these copies on the WinXP look more recent.

Note this WinXP is one of five systems, two other WinXP and two other
Win98
not one of them did this.

I did not notice the shifted time until I went to syncrhonize a single
file and the program started changing ALL of them, not the single one
it should have updated.

Any idea what caused this? Any idea how to change it back?

Robert

 

[A Noni Moose]

And what to do about it!

I did not notice when I copied 1700 files onto the WinXP machine that
the OS changed the time stamp by 1 hour ahead.

for example, instead of
2/17/2007 7:45 PM
each file has the time incremented like
2/17/2007 8:45 PM

which makes all these copies on the WinXP look more recent.

Note this WinXP is one of five systems, two other WinXP and two other
Win98
not one of them did this.

I did not notice the shifted time until I went to syncrhonize a single
file and the program started changing ALL of them, not the single one
it should have updated.

Any idea what caused this? Any idea how to change it back?

Robert

Daylight Savings Time perhaps???

 

[Big_Al]

Robert Macy said this on 3/15/2009 12:45 PM:

And what to do about it!

I did not notice when I copied 1700 files onto the WinXP machine that
the OS changed the time stamp by 1 hour ahead.

for example, instead of
2/17/2007 7:45 PM
each file has the time incremented like
2/17/2007 8:45 PM

which makes all these copies on the WinXP look more recent.

Note this WinXP is one of five systems, two other WinXP and two other
Win98
not one of them did this.

I did not notice the shifted time until I went to syncrhonize a single
file and the program started changing ALL of them, not the single one
it should have updated.

Any idea what caused this? Any idea how to change it back?

Robert

Yes, my nightly backups have done the same thing. Caused all of them
to look "different" and I did a full copy. And I'll bet your system is
formatted NTFS right?

 

[Bob Knowlden]

The Windows time stamp is for GMT.

The *displayed* version of it is at the local time. Daylight Savings Time
has increased that by an hour. The files have not been modified.

 

[BillW50]

In Big_Al typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:56:59 -0400:

Robert Macy said this on 3/15/2009 12:45 PM:

Yes, my nightly backups have done the same thing. Caused all of them
to look "different" and I did a full copy. And I'll bet your system
is formatted NTFS right?

Yes NTFS stores the time International format while FAT stores time
locally. And when the local time changes... you see this change.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

 

[Robert Macy]

InBig_Al typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:56:59 -0400:







Yes NTFS stores the time International format while FAT stores time
locally. And when the local time changes... you see this change.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Thank you for your response.

Makes sense, FAT32 on the Win98 and NTFS on the WinXP. I will confirm
this when I have access to the other machine. But, makes the most
sense. What is a little confusing is that these two machines both
have the proper time zone, daylight savings time implemeneted. so
shouldn't the dates come up the same?

For right now on this WinXP [the other doesn't do it, because it has
FAT32 also]; I simply renamed the directory containing all the files
with the 'wrong' dates to save everything. Then recreated the
original folder name and loaded in all 1700 files again. Now I have
to go to the renamed folder and do something to cull out valid changed
files. Actually, there are quite a few never before existing files in
there to save, too. And if, there are any that I changed within an
hour of the previous file, ARRRRGGG!!!!

For future, is there any way to circumvent this type of collision?
One obvious way is to not use the WinXP system. This was the very,
very slow system that I finally fixed by disabling the 'DNS storage'
so that it now runs very fast.

Robert

 

[Bill in Co.]

Thank you for your response.

Makes sense, FAT32 on the Win98 and NTFS on the WinXP. I will confirm
this when I have access to the other machine. But, makes the most
sense. What is a little confusing is that these two machines both
have the proper time zone, daylight savings time implemeneted. so
shouldn't the dates come up the same?

It would be nice if they did, but they evidently can't, due to the
differences in the way the time is handled in NTFS and FAT.

For right now on this WinXP [the other doesn't do it, because it has
FAT32 also]; I simply renamed the directory containing all the files
with the 'wrong' dates to save everything. Then recreated the
original folder name and loaded in all 1700 files again. Now I have
to go to the renamed folder and do something to cull out valid changed
files. Actually, there are quite a few never before existing files in
there to save, too. And if, there are any that I changed within an
hour of the previous file, ARRRRGGG!!!!

For future, is there any way to circumvent this type of collision?
One obvious way is to not use the WinXP system.

Or perhaps use FAT32 for the XP system too instead of NTFS, which doesn't
sound like a good idea.

FWIW, I've given up on it, and (seemingly) have to live with this "one hour
DST based discontinuity" that shows up on all the folder/file dates between
my NTFS and FAT systems or partitions. (One would have hoped that there
would have been a good solution that could eliminate this problem, but,
evidently there isn't, due to the different ways time is stored).

 

[BillW50]

In
Robert Macy typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:53:50 -0700 (PDT):
[...]

Makes sense, FAT32 on the Win98 and NTFS on the WinXP. I will confirm
this when I have access to the other machine. But, makes the most
sense. What is a little confusing is that these two machines both
have the proper time zone, daylight savings time implemeneted. so
shouldn't the dates come up the same?

No! FAT has no idea about daylight saving time. NTFS on the other hand
knows all about it.

[...]

For future, is there any way to circumvent this type of collision?
One obvious way is to not use the WinXP system. This was the very,
very slow system that I finally fixed by disabling the 'DNS storage'
so that it now runs very fast.

The problem isn't Windows XP, but the difference how the date and time
is kept between FAT and NTFS. If you want to continue to use FAT,
Windows XP will run under FAT32 just fine. Vista on the other hand, I
hear will not run under FAT32 and must be NTFS.

 

[Bill in Co.]

In
Robert Macy typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:53:50 -0700 (PDT):
[...]

Makes sense, FAT32 on the Win98 and NTFS on the WinXP. I will confirm
this when I have access to the other machine. But, makes the most
sense. What is a little confusing is that these two machines both
have the proper time zone, daylight savings time implemeneted. so
shouldn't the dates come up the same?

No! FAT has no idea about daylight saving time. NTFS on the other hand
knows all about it.

[...]

For future, is there any way to circumvent this type of collision?
One obvious way is to not use the WinXP system. This was the very,
very slow system that I finally fixed by disabling the 'DNS storage'
so that it now runs very fast.

The problem isn't Windows XP, but the difference how the date and time
is kept between FAT and NTFS. If you want to continue to use FAT,
Windows XP will run under FAT32 just fine.

Ummm, well, but in a much more limited way (in terms of robustness), since
NTFS has all that journaling built in. So - probably not such a good idea.
(although I sometimes miss real DOS and the DOS system fallback recovery
methods of the past - but then again, with WinXP and NTFS, "it's a rare day
in May.." that we ever need such a recovery (as was more often the case with
Win9x)

Vista on the other hand, I
hear will not run under FAT32 and must be NTFS.

Vista???????? What is Vista?

 

[Randall Flagg]

Vista???????? What is Vista?

Something you'll finally upgrade to 6 years after official support for
it ends.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Something you'll finally upgrade to 6 years after official support for
it ends.

Nah, I don't care about that ("official support").

 

[Randall Flagg]

Nah, I don't care about that ("official support").

The point was that it takes you a long time to adopt anything "new".

 

[Big_Al]

BillW50 said this on 3/15/2009 1:32 PM:

In Big_Al typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:56:59 -0400:

Yes NTFS stores the time International format while FAT stores time
locally. And when the local time changes... you see this change.

So what does Mac do about all this DST stuff. And Linux (Ubuntu)?
I don't have any of those or plan too, just curious, if you know!
Seems shortsighted to skip something like this in the grand scheme of R&D.

 

[BillW50]

In Big_Al typed on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:16:25 -0400:

BillW50 said this on 3/15/2009 1:32 PM:

So what does Mac do about all this DST stuff. And Linux (Ubuntu)?
I don't have any of those or plan too, just curious, if you know!
Seems shortsighted to skip something like this in the grand scheme of
R&D.

I am not sure how the Mac deals with time. And I am pretty sure Linux
uses International Time. And I don't think you really should be too hard
on FAT. After all, it has been around for almost 30 years now. And the
most popular OS back then was CP/M 2.2. Which didn't use timestamps for
any of its files. Worse, most CP/M 2.2 computers didn't even sport
clocks anyway.

 

[BillW50]

In Randall Flagg typed on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:22:38 -0500:

The point was that it takes you a long time to adopt anything "new".

Nah, the truth is it takes Microsoft years to get something right. I've
done my time as a beta tester in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Now it is
your turn to be beta testers for Microsoft. As I'll just wait until you
guys get it right.

 

[BillW50]

In Bill in Co. typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:14:50 -0600:

In
Robert Macy typed on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:53:50 -0700 (PDT):
[...]

Makes sense, FAT32 on the Win98 and NTFS on the WinXP. I will
confirm this when I have access to the other machine. But, makes
the most sense. What is a little confusing is that these two
machines both have the proper time zone, daylight savings time
implemeneted. so shouldn't the dates come up the same?

No! FAT has no idea about daylight saving time. NTFS on the other
hand knows all about it.

[...]

For future, is there any way to circumvent this type of collision?
One obvious way is to not use the WinXP system. This was the very,
very slow system that I finally fixed by disabling the 'DNS storage'
so that it now runs very fast.

The problem isn't Windows XP, but the difference how the date and
time is kept between FAT and NTFS. If you want to continue to use
FAT, Windows XP will run under FAT32 just fine.

Ummm, well, but in a much more limited way (in terms of robustness),
since NTFS has all that journaling built in. So - probably not such
a good idea. (although I sometimes miss real DOS and the DOS system
fallback recovery methods of the past - but then again, with WinXP
and NTFS, "it's a rare day in May.." that we ever need such a
recovery (as was more often the case with Win9x)...

Recovery methods? That problem has been solved with BartPE. I would use
BartPE even on a DOS based system today. No need for DOS recovery
methods anymore.