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Number   :  523
Date     :  2001-08-04
Author   :  Jon Hugdahl
Subject  :  Re: maybe stupid question but......
Size(KB) :  4


I remember an early DOS program that would change the dates on a
file.
It's probably stored on a 5.25" floppy and I no longer have that
drive.
As I remember from the first days of copy and xcopy the file's
dates are preserved in those operations and I do not notice any
change today.

I do not understand all the flap about dates, for I do not have
that problem.

I regularly back up my critical files into generations of
folders. This means that I am always 
copying folders of files into a new folder created by either
xcopy or by xxcopy. The file dates are copied while preserving
all their varied dates and times. Only the (new) folders have
the date of copy. Actually this is most useful in that I can
identify the date of the backup copy operation by inspecting the
dates on the folders, wheras inpecting the files dates is useless
for that purpose.

So what am I missing out on in this discussion?

I use win98se

xxcopy@yahoogroups.com wrote:

--Message: 1
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 08:27:03 -0400
From: rotaiv 
Subject: Re: maybe stupid question but......

At 08/03/2001 08:16 AM, Dan Anderson wrote:

>I recognize that this is not an xxcopy-specific approach, but
can the
>creation date of specific files be altered by changing the
date on the
>computer, then re-saving the file, and changing the computer
date back
>again? My recollection is that there are hazards with doing
this sort of
>thing but I don't recall what they would be.

A few hazards I can think of are time sensitive software that
may
spontaneously expire, never to be used again (even when the
date/time is
set back to the correct time).

Also, any programs using scheduled appointments and/or
reminders may
suddenly trigger with no way to reset them other than to
recreate the
original event.

Closely related, are any mail archiving software that may
suddenly decide
to archive (or worse, delete) mail older than a certain date,
etc, etc.

By the way, all these examples are from practical experiences
....

The way I found out about most of these was to open up the
Windows
date/time settings in Control Panel and use it as a calendar to
view dates
in the future. There was (maybe still is) a bug in Windows
that even
though you did not "apply" the new date, the underlying OS has
still
changed the date/time. It may be fixed now but I downloaded a
standalone
calendar program to avoid any further problems.

Just my two cents worth...

rotaiv.


________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 09:38:23 -0500
From: Kan Yabumoto 
Subject: Re: maybe stupid question but......

Dan,

You are right that you can change the system time and perform
whatever actions like copying files and setting the time back
to manipulate certain timestamps as a last resort technique.
We have done this in the past in the DOS environment (but
we usually ended up with inaccuracy of up to 2 seconds).

As Rotaiv said, changing the system time for the sake of some
file-management purposes comes with adverse effects. In a
multi-
tasking environment, it is too risky to do. In the past, we
were
tempted to do just that in order to set the timestamp of a
directory
in the Win9x environment. Even though it can be done (even for
a fraction of a second), we were too afraid for any side
effects
exactly like those mentioned by rotaiv. Fortunately, under the
Win NT/2000/XP, XXCOPY has a legitimate way to set/change the
timestamp of the directory.

In the case of changing the creation of time a file (or
directory
for that matter), is quite different. If we decide to support
the function, we do not have to resort to the dangerous scheme
of changing the system time in order to achieve that. There is
an official Win32 API which allows XXCOPY to set/modify the
creation time.

I have been ambivalent (as stated in my last post) about the
idea of changing the file-creation date. In accordance with
the spirit of XXCOPY (to include everything but the kitchen
sink), it should support this feature and we are inclined to
do so...

Kan Yabumoto
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