title: Known problems with filemtime() on Windows - files getting touched arbitrarily?
body: <p>Is there a known issue leading to file modification times of cache files on Windows XP SP 3 getting arbitrarily updated, but without any actual change?</p>
  
  <p>Is there some service on a standard Windows XP - Backup, Sync, Versioning, Virus scanner - known to touch files? They all have a <code>.txt</code> extension.</p>
  
  <p>If there isn't, forget it. Then I'm getting something wrong in my cache routines, and I'll debug my way through.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Background:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'm building a simple caching wrapper around a slow web site on a Windows server.</p>
  
  <p>I am comparing the <code>filemtime()</code> time stamp to some columns in the data base to determine whether a cached file is stale.</p>
  
  <p>I'm having problems using this method because the modification time of the cache files seems to get updated in between operations <em>without me doing anything</em>. THis results in stale files being displayed.</p>
  
  <p>I'm the only user on the machine. The operating system is Windows XP, the webserver a XAMPP Apache 2 with PHP 5.2</p>