Subject: Weekend Announcements 09/10/1999

From: Erols Internet
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 01:59:39 -0400

THIS WEEK'S ANNOUNCEMENTS

-- TIP OF THE WEEK - WINDOWS AND THE YEAR 2000
-- SITE(S) OF THE WEEK - THE Y2K BUG

You can always find our previous announcements by DATE here:
http://www.erols.com/erols/news/index.html

and by SUBJECT here:

http://www.erols.com/erols/news/news_by_subject.htm 

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TIP OF THE WEEK: WINDOWS AND THE YEAR 2000
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For some time now an e-mail has been circulating on the Internet saying that 
most versions of Windows will fail on New Year's Day, 2000, unless you fix it.

This is a hoax.

The e-mail refers to Windows 95, 98, and NT and comes in a variety of slightly 
different wordings.  Here is what one says:

[quote]

"Every copy of Windows will fail on January 1st unless you fix it now, to fix 
it.

"1.Click on `My Computer'
"2.Click on `Control Panel'
"3.Click on `Regional Settings'
"4.Click on the `Date' tab. Where it says, `Short Date Sample' look and see if 
it shows a `two Digit' year. Of course it does. That's the default setting for 
Windows 95, 98 and NT. This date RIGHT HERE is the date that feeds application 
software and WILL NOT rollover in the year 2000. It will rollover to 00.
"5.Click on the button across from `Short Date Style' and select the option that 
shows mm/dd/yyyy. Be sure your selection has four Y's showing, not two.
"6.Click `Apply' and then click on `OK' at the bottom. Easy enough to fix. 
However, every single installation of Windows worldwide is defaulted to fail Y2K 
rollover."

[end quote]

Wrong!  The "Short Date Style" referred to above is just that, an abbreviation 
for the longer "yyyy" format.  It affects only how dates are displayed on your 
screen, for example, 09/11/99 as opposed to 09/11/1999.  Changing this setting 
will have no impact how Windows "rolls over" on January 1st, 2000; later 
versions of Windows will handle the date change well.

To read what Microsoft itself says about this, please go here:

http://www.microsoft.com/y2k/hoax/y2khoax.htm

Microsoft asserts that Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT are all 
"compliant," as the saying goes, for the year 2000.

Notice that Windows 3.xx products are NOT mentioned.  This is because File 
Manager in Windows 3.xx will display an incorrect date if a file is created with 
a date of 01-01-2000 or later. However, this can be fixed with a downloadable 
patch from Microsoft.  For more from Microsoft about this, go here:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q85/5/57.asp

Microsoft is also recommending that you download a patch to fix some relatively 
minor Year 2000 problems in the first edition of Windows 98. (They were fixed in 
the "Windows 98, Second Edition."  To read about that, please go here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product/user_view71356EN.htm

[Microsoft is offering a downloadable "Product Analyzer" to check ALL its 
software for Year 2000 problems.  For more, please see Sites of the Week below.]

Although a new poll in USA Today says fears are fading about the Y2K bug, the 
subject is so complex that many Y2K issues are beyond the scope of this space. 

(Read the poll story here: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg071.htm)

What we can do, however, is offer you a limited road map of Web sites you can 
visit to learn more.  Please go to our "Sites of the Week" below.

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SITE(S) OF THE WEEK - THE Y2K BUG
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All of our sites this week are about the Y2K bug.

Is the End of the World - or just a lot of hype?

Hmmm.  Interesting question.  The turn of the millennium, the formal passing of 
2000 years of history, is a moment that will affect us in ways that none can 
foresee.  What we are talking about, though, is a "glitch." 

What it boils down to is that older computers and software keep track of years 
with two digits, 98, 99, 00 and so on.  When the clock turns at midnight, 
December 31, 1999 to the next day, January 1, 2000, some [older] machines and 
[older] software will see just "00," and will get confused and think, "uh oh, 
it's 1900!"  They will not "know" 2000, and so, they will fail.  

A Microsoft site defines the problem and offers a bit of history:

http://computingcentral.msn.com/guide/year2000/y2khistory.asp  

Follow that with this, a good place to start reading:

http://computingcentral.msn.com/guide/year2000/

As the world's dominant software maker Microsoft could hardly afford to ignore 
the Y2K problem.  This well-designed site offers some of the company's own 
views.  Interestingly, it also "farms out" some answers to links with two big 
online publishers, Ziff-Davis, the publishers of PC magazine, and CNET.

The Ziff-Davis link is at "Ten Steps to Take Now" and also at:

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,392798,00.html

Among the steps is "Y2K Compliance on Home PCs," which is also at:

http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,392805,00.html

This page offers a brief overview of potential problems facing home users.  It 
also says if you are using Windows 95 or 98 you can download PC magazine's own 
utility to see if critical elements of your system's HARDWARE are Year 2000 
compliant.

The utility tests your PC's BIOS and clock, and can be found at: 

http://cgi.zdnet.com/zdy2k/y2k.pl
 
To check your Microsoft SOFTWARE, the company offers a downloadable program, 
called the Microsoft Year 2000 Product Analyzer 2.0. It scans your computer's 
hard drive and generates a report if finds any problems on any Microsoft  
software.  (It will NOT necessarily find problems on third-party software.)

Microsoft says the vast majority of its software is more or less Y2K compliant, 
with some notable exceptions, such as Windows 3.xx and Internet Explorer 3.xx.  

You can find out more by going to Microsoft's main Year 2000 site at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/

You will find the Product Analyzer linked on this site, and also at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/pca/pca.htm

To find out if a specific Microsoft product is Year 2000 compliant, go to:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product/product.asp

This site requires careful reading, because some of the language looks like it 
was written to avoid lawsuits.

Basically, Microsoft breaks down its products into several categories of Year 
2000 "compliance."  These are:

Compliant	  Means the product as good as is; you have to do nothing.
Compliant*        Means the product will work if you load a software update or                                 
                  read a document describing a problem.
Compliant#        Means the product will work, but with minor glitches.
Compliant+        Means the product will work if you load a software update that
                  Microsoft is still developing, so stay tuned.

Not Compliant     Seems simple enough, but read on.

Half-way down the Product Analyzer page is a window with a scrollable list that 
includes the vast majority of Microsoft products.   Find your product, click on 
"Perform Search," and a page will tell you whether the item is fully compliant, 
or has a little glitch or two.  (See the symbols above.)

It takes a bit of further detective work to find out if early versions of one of 
Microsoft's most famous products -- MS-DOS -- are compliant or not. Versions 
going back to 5.0 will work with a few date-stumbles.

Versions before 5.0 do not appear on Microsoft's "Testing Yet To Be Completed" 
List, and a list labeled "Will Not Test" has no names on it.  This is a 
roundabout way of saying, if you can't find it, forget about it.

CNET also offers a series of useful links for Year 2000 issues.  These begin at:

http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reports/Special/Y2K/index.html?st.cn.nws.rl.cn

This opens up "Y2K, The Bug of the Century," CNET's main page on the subject.

>From there you can click on "Y2K and your PC," that will take you to further 
pages dealing separately with hardware, operating systems, software 
applications, and the Internet.  These are generally well written and easy to 
understand. 

You may have noticed that so far there has been no mention of Apple and 
Macintosh computers.  That's because Apple had the foresight to deal with Y2K 
issues long ago.  Macintosh computers have been built with the capacity to deal 
with the Year 2000 since they were introduced in 1984.  As a consequence, most 
Mac applications will have far less problems with Y2K than Microsoft products.

To be reassured by Apple itself, please go to their Year 2000 site at:

http://www.apple.com/about/year2000/

We will be covering more Year 2000 issues in this space from time to time as the 
need arises.

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We wish you a pleasant late-summer weekend