TS wrote:

Rather than working around buggy servers, I think you'd be working around a buggy OS, which I think is a justified exception to make.

WinSCP does that.
Update 2026: Does not anymore, as all versions of Windows where this was relevant are long obsolete.

I know the folks at Bitvise have gone around the block a few times with daylight savings and timestamps as well, so I think they've also got it right.

Rather than working around buggy servers, I think you'd be working around a buggy OS, which I think is a justified exception to make. I can try to complain to MS about this, but experience tells me they probably won't listen. In this case, the operating systems themselves locally report different timestamps on files that a couple weeks ago had the same timestamps. The file's timestamp hasn't changed in either location, but the OS' interpretation of what time that means has apparently changed.

I would just use synchronize timestamps, but this is a large number of files. Some really have changed, and some haven't. I can't just treat them all the same, and separating on a file-by-file basis would take a week.

I believe that WinSCP handles timestamps correctly these days (after years of attempts to find a correct solution). I do not know if WinSSHD does. Adding option with "timestamp offset" is possible, but I do not like it as it would be just a workaround for buggy servers (supposing WinSCP is correct).

As to the modifying timestamps, see Synchronize timestamps option in Synchronization dialog.

I'm synching files between a Windows XP laptop (WinSCP 4.0.5) and Windows 2003 Server (running WinSSHD if it matters). No combination of the daylight savings options given in the configuration seem to be right.

For example, on the server, right click -> properties reports a file's m-time as Dec. 9 2005 02:32:18 AM. The same file on the laptop reports its m-time in properties as Dec. 9 2005 03:32:18 AM. Both server and client have adjusted for daylight savings and agree on the current time. I can try any of the three daylight savings adjustment options in the WinSCP configuration, but the timestamps are always off by an hour from each other, whereas before the daylight savings switch the timestamps apparently agreed (since the synchronization didn't want to re-copy the example file then).

Maybe the easiest way to address the issue would be a WinSCP option to locally (on the client) adjust all server-reported m-times by + or - N (or 0.5N) hours for synchronization purposes. That would also take care of desynchronization between time zones.

In the meantime, is there any way to make this "just work"? Because otherwise I think my only option is to write a script to go through and manually adjust the m-time by an hour on every single file.