Finding my build date?

[Drazel]

I am not sure what file shows the build date for my client build? I have never run my client so I don't have a eqclient.ini either. Any help would be great. Thanks.

[Uleat]

The easiest way is to just start your client.

It will produce a dbg.txt file in the program's logs directory and it will (usually) be the first line.

I'm not 100% that the dbg file is produced without an actual login, however...


If you're comfortable accessing binary data, the build info can be found in the ".rdata" directory of the PE file structure.

Just search for ": ?? ?? :" (or compatible criteria) and that should find the build time within a search or two. The build date is located just before this,
and the two together make up the client version.

7zip will actually allow you to open the client like an archive.

[Drazel]

Ok, I hadn't installed the client yet. I have several clients and I will have to research further on what opening a zip file as an archive gives me access too. I have never used that before, zip files are so nice you can just click on them to see the files inside.

I have not done a lot with binary files, but the information is much appreciated.

Thanks

[AdrianD]

A cheap way to see when a file was last altered is to view with details in Windows.

[Shendare]

That'll give you the modified date, but that's not the same as the build date.

Uleat's right that the easiest way is to run the client and see what it shows at the top of the logs/dbg.txt file.

The other way is to use 7-Zip to open or unzip eqgame.exe as an archive and see the modified date of the .data, .rdata, and .text sections that are extracted.

[AdrianD]

I didn't think it was. Would the dates be very much different under normal circumstances?

I'm glad you came on to clarify.

[Shendare]

Not a huge amount.

SoF client has a build date of 9/7/2007 and a modified date of 9/27/2007.

[Drazel]

Ok, so that is pretty cool. So I right-clicked on my eqgame.exe file and under my 7-zip option, I was able to open the file as an archive and found the .data, .rdata, and .text sections. Now I need to find a way to view them. I never knew you could do that to a file.

Thank you so much.

[AdrianD]

I read the original post incorrectly. The same idea applied.

I suppose if a person hadn't played in a long time and wanted to know if their client version would match eqemu server code, this information could be lined up with patch dates.

Thanks again for the clarification.

[Drazel]

So I downloaded a binary viewer and took the .rdata file, now it was all in hex, but it had a file properties section and a file info section under that stating that the file create date for .rdata was 5/10/2013.

I am thinking that is the build date.

[Shendare]

Yeah, that's the build date I show for the RoF2 client, which is compatible with EQEmu.

[Drazel]

Very helpful. I learned something new in the process. Thanks for the help.