Greetings!

BGInfo allows you to create a custom attribute. This can be the contents of a file or an environment var, among other options. Kix can easily create either - just make sure bginfo is called after Kix updates the value.

You can use one of the timediff() UDF to easily return the number of days between dates.. for example, if the exams start on Feb 15, 2010, you would run
 Code:
$Days = TimeDiff('2/15/2012', 'Today', 'D')
Save the result, along with any other message, to a file or environment var
 Code:
$ = RedirectOutput('C:\Temp\countdown.txt')
Int($Days) ' days before start of exams!'
$ = RedirectOutput('')
I tested this with BGInfo and the custom File attribute. The Int() is required because the TimeDiff will return the fractional day part.

Glenn
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Actually I am a Rocket Scientist! \:D