[cagliostro]

Incorrect file timestamps on all CDs in Windows XP: I purchased a Windows XP machine a month ago. I use backup CDs for my work, and synchronize to them to see what has been modified.Within a day I had transferred a data CD to my new computer. BUT I couldn't compare to the CD because all the timestamps on the CD were being read incorrectly. I should see duplicate files, newer files, missing files, but with the false timestamps everything reads as different. Since I had just copied from the CD everything should match. FALSE READINGS HAPPEN WITH ALL CDS.I was going to return the machine. The tech people at Circuit City gave me absolute nonsense, saying timestamps have nothing to do with a CD, that timestamps are put on by the computer when a disc is inserted into the drive. One guy finally said that Windows XP can't read a CD timestamp correctly unless the CD was created using Windows XP. (My storage CDs were created using Windows ME.) They refused to take back the computer without charging me over a hundred dollars for opening the package. (I will never shop at Circuit City again.)I have spent a month on this. I have yet to use the XP machine for work, because once I put business files on the machine I essentially lose them--there is no way to synchronize to them. Then I happened to buy a USB flash drive (mostly because it seemed neat). I plugged this into my WinME computer, copied about 300MB of files, then plugged the USB drive into my WinXP computer, and transferred the files to the hard drive. The timestamps match! I can synchronize to the USB drive with both computers, and I don't see phony timestamps! SUCCESS!I falsely believed my problem was solved. I could now transfer files and maintain the timestamps, and then create good CDs in WinXP, and take them back to my WinME computer to synchronize machines. This is a oneway transfer, but that will have to do. So this morning I made a CD of files on my new WinXP computer. The CD has nothing but false timestamps!Creating a CD in Windows XP doesn't solve the problem! I look at the CD from "My Computer" and I can see none of the timestamps are correct. After creating the CD from a directory (folder), I immediately tried to synchronize to that directory from the CD--all the files are reported as different! I should have 100% match.I have over 100 backup CDs from work, many of these contain over 4,000 files. There is no way to manually sort through these files. I need the timestamps to work to tell me what has been modified. They just don't work in Windows XP. I don't understand. Reading a timestamp is trivial--I wrote the assembly language routines for this myself, back in the days of DOS. How can Windows XP possibly misread CD timestamps?Note: everything still works on my WinME computer, it is only Windows XP that is the problem.