I haven't fully analyzed the screenshots, I've read just your text, seen the arrow in the screenshot and that way have seen that the files are missing, and only then read the linked explanation from Corina, and that explanation is much clearer: touch or not touch as such is not relevant, only the order of the files in the resulting tar matters, and now it seems to me that your screenshots confirm that: it's just about order during untaring. Thanks.
It seems that the archivers ask "does test exist" and when answered "yes" perform "delete test" which by cygwin >=1.7 actually deletes test.exe? Or even worse, the "open test" with some flag results in deleting test.exe and creating test.
But it also seems that touch asks "does test exist" and when answered yes it doesn't create it, just changes the datetime. Which probably changes the datetime of test.exe?
Anyway it would be good to investigate which actual calls by the user applications are being made in each case, to know what the actual sequence in each case is.
I haven't fully analyzed the screenshots, I've read just your text, seen the arrow in the screenshot and that way have seen that the files are missing, and only then read the linked explanation from Corina, and that explanation is much clearer: touch or not touch as such is not relevant, only the order of the files in the resulting tar matters, and now it seems to me that your screenshots confirm that: it's just about order during untaring. Thanks.