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Checking Your PC for Y2K Compliance |
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Checking
Your PC for Y2K Compliance
by Peter Huemer
Introduction
How can
you make sure that your PC is ready for the
Year
2000? You can identify and fix many of the
Year
2000 problems in your PC yourself, or you may
contact
a qualified computer consultant to perform
a Y2K
Evaluation. When you test your PC, try to use
an
isolated system and not one currently used in
operations.
Changing the date on a production
system
could cause problems for date-dependent
operations
and data, such as calendar and e-mail
functions.
Always create separate test files to
conduct
your Year 2000 testing; never use a current
copy of
any file for testing. Backup your data prior
to doing
any testing.
Hardware
First,
check the hardware. The following simple
procedure
can be used to determine the compliance
of your
PC's Basic Input/Output System (BIOS).
1. Set
the date on your PC to December 31,
1999
and the time to 23:55hrs (11:55pm).
Then
shut down the computer in the normal
manner
and turn the power off.
2. Wait
at least 5 minutes, and then turn on the
PC.
3.
Verify that the date is Saturday, January 1,
2000,
and the time is a few minutes past
midnight.
4. If
the day of the week, date, or time is
incorrect, you have a problem with your
system
BIOS. This may require a software
upgrade
to the BIOS or hardware
replacement. Contact the manufacturer of
the
motherboard or consult your computer
technician.
5.
Repeat the same test described above
without
shutting down the machine and
turning
off the power.
Because
many systems will not recognize 2000 as a
leap
year, your PC should also be tested for the
millennium
leap year. You can follow the
above-described
procedure, but set the date on your
PC to
February 28, 2000 at 23:55hrs. Verify that the
PC rolls
over to Tuesday, February 29, 2000 with the
time a
few minutes after midnight.
If your
computer fails the BIOS rollover test, you
need to
investigate your options. Your PC
manufacturer
may have an updated BIOS available.
If you
were using a Compaq Presario 4700 Series,
for
example, you could download a Softpaq flash
BIOS
update. Under many circumstances, however,
you will
be faced with replacing either the
motherboard
or the computer. Today, with $100 and
new PC's
starting at about $600, this is not nearly
as
painful an undertaking as it once was.
Operating Systems
The
majority of stand-alone PC's utilize a version of
Microsoft's
Windows Operating System. Microsoft
has
categorized the English versions of DOS 5.0a,
6.0,
6.2, 6.21, 6.22, Windows 3.1, Windows for
Workgroups,
and the various flavors of Windows 95
as
"compliant with minor issues". For these
operating
systems, the operational date range for
data is
through the year 2035. Updates to address
some of
the Y2K issues in these operating systems
should
be downloaded from
ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles.
For Windows
3.1 and
Windows for Workgroups, one can obtain an
updated
version of winfile.exe by downloading
W31FILUP.EXE
or WFWFILUP.EXE. The Windows 95
patch is
WIN95Y2K.EXE. If you are running either
Windows
95 or Windows 98, make certain that you
set your
short date format (found in the regional
settings
control panel) to use a 4-digit year. For
additional
information on Microsoft products, please
see:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product
or call 1-888-MSFT-Y2K
For a
fully-compliant (versus "compliant with minor
issues")
version of the Microsoft's Windows
operating
system, consider upgrading to Windows
98 or
Windows NT Workstation. Note that these
versions
are not compliant out of the box, however.
Windows
NT requires the application of Service
Pack 4.
On December 7, 1998, Microsoft announced
that it
had identified and fixed "minor year 2000
issues"
with Windows 98. According to Microsoft,
"The
issues identified pose no risk of data loss or
PC
damage, and customers would be unlikely to
encounter
the issues during normal daily use of
their
computer." The Windows 98 update is
available,
free of charge, via download from
http://www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
You can
also
order the CD online or get it by calling
1-800-363-2896.
Applications
[As mentioned in our last article,] many commonly-used applications have been identified as being non-compliant. Microsoft Office 97, for example, requires the SR-2 patch to address several Y2K issues. You should start by compiling a list of all the applications on your computer, and categorize them as compliant, non-compliant, or unknown. In most cases, the best policy for dealing with non-compliant applications is to either update them with a newer, compliant version or remove them from your PC. If you don't know whether an application is compliant, start by contacting the software vendor. Many vendors have posted Year 2000 compliancy statements about their software on their web sites.
If you're still in doubt, check out http://www.vendor2000.com.
Data
Just because your hardware, operating system, and applications are Year 2000 compliant, doesn't mean that your data is. For example, although Excel 97 SR2 is reportedlyY2K compliant, a user could easily enter 2-digit year in a spreadsheet used to calculate amortization. Depending on how the spreadsheet was designed, post-year 2000 results could wildly inaccurate. It is important to go through your key data files (spreadsheets, databases, etc.) and make sure that date information is entered such that it is properly interpreted after the Year 2000. In most cases, this is a tedious and time-consuming process, although some vendors have come out with migration packages to assist with the process. For example, Expandable Software, authors of the Expandable accounting application, have a package that can convert hundred of thousands of transactions with a 2-digit year entry to a 4-digit year entry.
There are several software packages that can be purchased to assist with Year 2000 compliance tests and fixes, including: 2000 Centurion, CDG 200 Inc., Centennial 2000, Check 2000 Client Server, Check 2000 PC, Cochranes Millenium Toolkit, DMXII Inc., DOSCHK, Express 2000 Suite, Fix 2000, Gasp 4.01, Henry Spencer Company, January 2000!, Macola Version 6.2, MFI Flash 2000, Millenium Bug toolkit, NEMYSES, NetInventory, Nuts & Bolts, ACCFix 2000, Datespy, Excelsior, OnMark 2000&Trade: Workbench for Excel&trade, OnMark 2000&Trade: Workbench for Access&trade, Total Access Inspector 2000, Trans Centry Office, Utility 2000. Both Symantec's Norton 2000 and Mcafee 2000 ToolBox from Network Associates are comprehensive Y2K software packages which boast the ability to check Real Time Clock and BIOS hardware, scan data files (Excel, Access, etc.), and alert you to known issues published by the manufacturers of popular applications found on your system.
Regardless of how diligent you are to assure that your hardware and software are compliant, other programs used by your vendors and suppliers may expose you to non-compliance. You will want to determine their Y2K status in order to avoid unnecessary problems and to prepare for anticipated problems.
Copyright © 1999 User-Friendly Computing
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