Output redirection is a feature of the shell program cmd.exe (command.exe on Win9x) so you have to say this...

shell ("%comspec% /c dgtime > lastlog.txt")
shell ("%comspec% /c xcopy /s /e /h /k /c /v d:\data\*.* \\server\backups >lastlog.txt")

Yeah - it's darn cold in T.O. today - hope it clears up for the holidays !

Luck !

Shawn.