Timpstamp, "20130426135723" gets expressed as "2.013E+13" and saved as "2013000000000"

We've got a data collection program that runs on Windows CE minicomputers. Each record has a YYYYMMDDHHMMSS timestamp. The program saves this data in csv format which is then accessed by Excel for data processing.

The problem is that Excel's default format settings takes the date string "20130426135723", and displays it as "2.013E+13" in the cell, and saves it (and all other timestamps in the table) as "20130000000000" in the spreadsheet.

How do I make this unwanted default behavior go away?

We have work-arounds during data processing, but if we forget these all of the timestamps get rounded to "20130000000000".

Thanks in advance for imparted wisdom and useful solutions.

The WindowsCE program generates the .csv files and stores them on the sdcard, this is mounted by the desktop and transferred to the desktop's hard drive.

Translating to a .txt or .xls file is part of the current work around. I was hoping for information regarding how to change this default setting. Currently opening the file and then saving it causes the timestamps to be truncated as previously described.

Thanks for the suggestions.