1

I've started seeing this on numerous Windows 10 systems, including my work and home PCs. Essentially, the time output of the NET TIME \\LOCALHOST command, which usually looks like "Current time at \\localhost is 4/2/2020 12:11:15 PM" now contains some sort of odd character preceding the DD, MM, and YYYY parts of the output string. I cannot seem to copy the odd characters, which makes me think they are some sort of terminal control character, perhaps.

This has broken some pieces of code that my company uses to determine remote datetime information.

This didn't used to happen on my work PC or my home PC, so I suspect a Windows 10 update has broken this command somewhat. Wondering if anyone else has seen this, and if there is anything I can do about it, other than address the issue in the parsing code.

Here is what the output looks like on my home PC:

Screenshot

Improve this question
1
  • those characters can be copied normally. It's just they're "invisible" so you need to use some Unicode escaping tool or hex viewing tool to examine
    – phuclv
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 3:17

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

I believe this is a bug in NET.EXE. This started being reported after systems updated to windows 10 build 18362, I believe, or at any rate during the second half of 2019. I see it on my system (using ver gives Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18363.752]). The character is reported to be E2808E (the 'LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK' U+200E Unicode character).

enter image description here

Improve this answer
4
  • Users with low reputation can't inline images. I edited the question to fix it.
    – Heptite
    Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 18:02
  • Thanks Mike, the version info is helpful. Going to see what I can get out of Windows support.
    – Steven P
    Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 18:46
  • I found an answers.microsoft.com thread here which seemed to kind of peter out.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 2, 2020 at 18:56
  • Very good, +1, and I think you need to understand that it was not me who gave you down here, otherwise, 0 -1 would disappear, and you would gain +12 with this action. Understand??
    – Io-oI
    Commented May 21, 2020 at 9:58
0

Have you thought about using your command in PowerShell with -Replace?

PowerShell -c "Net Time \\localhost |  % {$_ -Replace '\?', ''}"
  • Outputs results:
Current time at \\localhost is 4/2/2020 9:32:30 PM

enter image description here

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .