THE TIME BEFORE (SYSTEM) TIME It's a safe bet that the subject of today's Geek Trivia won't affect you. In fact, you'll probably never run across this problem. But we thought you would at least enjoy reading about a rather obscure bug that Microsoft felt compelled to fix.
First, let's have a bit of arcane operating system knowledge: The time attributes for a file in Windows 2000 are stored as 64-bit values that indicate the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since a specific, arbitrary starting date. That means 10 million times a second, this 64-bit value is updated and the current time is calculated based on how many 100-nanosecond intervals have elapsed since the stroke of midnight on Microsoft's rather unlikely start date. The bug in question involves Win2K's inability to reckon time before this start date, almost as if the operating system refuses to believe that any event could have occurred previous to this peculiar point in history. Thankfully, Microsoft chose a date so far removed from most organizations' daily operations that very few--if any--support techs would ever have even encountered the bug. This begs the question, though: Why did Bill Gates' programmers bother to fix it? WHAT UNLIKELY DATE IS USED TO RECKON TIME IN WINDOWS 2000? answer below: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Win2K reckons time as the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since Jan. 1, 1601. Yes, you read it right. That's sometime after the discovery of fire but before the invention of the flush toilet. So, if your system time is set to 12 A.M., Jan. 1, 1601, Windows 2000 creates a file time of zero. Now, here's the interesting part: When you use the DIR command to list a directory, DIR adds the local time zone offset to the time to determine the value to display. If your computer uses a negative time zone offset, however, an invalid date is passed to DIR, which displays nonsense dates in its output. You can address the potential problem in one of two ways. First, don't set your system clock back to the beginning of Microsoft Time, Jan. 1, 1601. Or, if you happen to be time traveling with H.G. Wells and need to set back your computer's clock that far, you'll be happy to know that Microsoft offers a fix for the problem. Check the version number for Cmd.exe, and if it is 5.0.2195.4803 or later, you're in good shape. If not, don't bother initiating a support ticket. Just install the latest service pack. ________________________________ Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
