DOS ain't dead

While moving data from old ThinkPad 770 to my new Evo N620c laptop I noticed a strange thing: Whenever copying (COPY, XCOPY, VC) a file with date "xxxx-01-01" (YYYY-MM-DD) from a network share its date becomes "adjusted" to "xxxx-13-01" (Do we have a 13th month, that I didn't know off? ). I wrote a small test tool in Turbo Pascal, which uses GetFTime to demonstrate this behaviour.

Here's the "packed" time result:

register DX (incorrect):
FEDCBA9 8765 43210  bit
0011010 1101 00001  value
2006 years (1980+26)
        13 months (?!)
             1 day

register CX (correct):
FEDCB A98765 43210  bit
01111 001101 00110  value
15 hours
      13 minutes
             12 seconds (6*2)

It's not a Y2K problem, because it also happens with older dates. This DOS function is involved: http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-2992.htm

Explanations are welcome! It's a little hard to debug this monster.

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Forum admin

> While moving data from old ThinkPad 770 to my new Evo N620c laptop I
> noticed a strange thing: Whenever copying (COPY, XCOPY, VC) a file with
> date "xxxx-01-01" (YYYY-MM-DD) from a network share its date becomes
> "adjusted" to "xxxx-13-01" (Do we have a 13th month, that I didn't know
> off? ).

Maybe this will explain it:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/#04

> Maybe this will explain it:
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/#04

You are kidding, aren't you?

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Forum admin

> While moving data from old ThinkPad 770 to my new Evo N620c laptop I
> noticed a strange thing: Whenever copying (COPY, XCOPY, VC) a file with
> date "xxxx-01-01" (YYYY-MM-DD) from a network share its date becomes
> "adjusted" to "xxxx-13-01" (Do we have a 13th month, that I didn't know
> off? ).
>
> Explanations are welcome! It's a little hard to debug this monster.

I dunno, try removing any COUNTRY.SYS lines in CONFIG.SYS, reboot, and try again. What specific DOS variant are you using? Does it behave the same in FreeDOS and something else too?

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Know your limits.h

> > Maybe this will explain it:
> > http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/#04
>
> You are kidding, aren't you?

Kidding, no. Only exploring. Did you buy your new machine from a Babylonian?

> I dunno, try removing any COUNTRY.SYS lines in CONFIG.SYS, reboot, and try

That would affect all file dates.

> again. What specific DOS variant are you using? Does it behave the same in
> FreeDOS and something else too?

I only tried MS-DOS 6.22, but different "servers" (Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP).

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Forum admin

> Kidding, no. Only exploring. Did you buy your new machine from a
> Babylonian?

Nope.

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Forum admin

> I only tried MS-DOS 6.22, but different "servers" (Windows NT 4.0, 2000,
> XP).

What is the latest date of the MS Network Client's .EXEs? By that, you can probably judge what the latest MS-DOS they tested on was (e.g. 1991 == 5.0).

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Know your limits.h

> Explanations are welcome! It's a little hard to debug this monster.

I tracked down this bug to the basic redirector. Full redirector works fine.

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Forum admin