Discrepancies in file dates and times

[GerryB]

This is not actually a problem with XYplorer, but I'm hoping someone here with more technical knowledge can explain the following behavior, which I've experienced not only in XYplorer, but in other file managers, as well:

I often copy some of the files on my hard drive to both an external hard drive and a USB memory stick immediately after I've modified or created them. The modification dates should be identical on the source and target drives. Nevertheless, the files on the memory stick show times that are exactly one hour in advance of the original files on the hard drive, while the minutes match exactly. My guess is that the annual time change from Daylight Savings to Standard, or vice-versa, causes this, yet I still don't understand why, or for that matter why only the memory stick is affected. Also, in XYplorer I always use custom copy with the option of preserving all item dates. At any rate, sync selection using the "unique or newer" option gets pretty awkward when files are selected that are in reality identical in every way.

Has anyone else seen this behavior, and is there any way to prevent it?

[Marco]

Is the stick formatted as FAT?

[GerryB]

Is the stick formatted as FAT?

Yes it is. Hmm ... Maybe that has something to do with it, but the stick has had a lot of writes by now, so I doubt if I can reformat it and recopy all those files without destroying it. Can memory sticks be reformatted as NTFS?

[kunkel321]

Not trying to derail the thread here... But I've noticed that when I back stuff up--which I do by pasting it into either OneDrive or GoogleDrive, the modification date (for every. single. item.) will sometimes get set to the date of when I do the back up. Very very annoying. Probably a different problem that Gerry is describing though (?) And, as Gerry indicated, this is not specific to XY (at least I don't think it is).

[GerryB]

Not trying to derail the thread here... But I've noticed that when I back stuff up--which I do by pasting it into either OneDrive or GoogleDrive, the modification date (for every. single. item.) will sometimes get set to the date of when I do the back up. Very very annoying.

That's a common problem. Same thing happens when I upload files to my website by FTP. I can always count on the modification date getting changed to the upload date, regardless of the settings in my FTP program. What makes it even more confusing is that the server's date is different due to the time zone difference. Even my ISP's mail server shows a different time in my sent e-mails. The ISP's local office is right down the street from me, but their servers are located in a different province.

Probably a different problem that Gerry is describing though (?) And, as Gerry indicated, this is not specific to XY (at least I don't think it is).

No, it isn't; before I started using XYplorer I had already seen it in FreeCommander, and I think even in Windows Explorer.