The Year 2000

Is your computer ready? Computer Services - West Virginia State College

What is the Year 2000 problem?

Stated simply, the Year 2000 problem stems from the fact that many older computers and software applications will malfunction when dealing with dates after December 31, 1999. Most installed computer applications use two digits (YY) instead of four digits (CCYY) to represent year values in programs, files, databases, and processes. The problem with the year 2000 is that a lot of software was written without thought of the future and used 2 digits to represent the year (97 for 1997). When 00 is used to represent 2000, some software will not calculate the result correctly. 

What can be done about the Year 2000 problem?

The first thing to do is to see if your computer has a Year 2000 problem. Many software packages are being introduced which will check you computer for Year 2000 compliance. Computer Services is actively testing campus hardware systems and is pursuing software packages to test campus used software. This newsletter will include links to some of the testing packages which we are employing across campus. Computer Services staff will attempt to test as many campus computers as possible and to apply a Y2K sticker to the back of those that pass the hardware inspection. 

The following link is for a product which will test your computers Microsoft Products for Y2k compliance.
http://www.wvstateu.edu/compsrvs/programs/y2k_adm.exe
Read the http://www.wvstateu.edu/compsrvs/programs/readme.txt
file for installation information before downloading the executable.
The analyzer works on Windows 95, 98 , and NT.

The following link is for a product which will test your system clocks for compliance (Hardware test). The program sets all of the computers clocks forward to December 31, 1999 at 11:59:50 and then counts down to the year 2000.  This is a self-extracting zip file. This will not work on every computer but is a very good hardware clock test for most computers. Computer Services is testing computers using this package, but if you wish to get a jump on the testing process you can perform it yourself. To do so, download a copy of the executable from the following location.
http://www.wvstateu.edu/compsrvs/programs/doschk.exe

How about Software?

Software also requires testing. Computer Services is working on a testing procedure for software and we hope to be able to publish a list of questionable software packages in the near future. Many sites such as the ones on in the next column are performing their own Y2K tests.
These sites will help you to see if your software is expected to work in the millenium. We will be adding more sites to this listing.

A few Sites with Year 2K information

Good site with lots of year 2000 links
http://www.ptech. wsj.com/mailbox.html
Year 2000 Home pages.
http://www.year2000.com/ | http://www.y2k.com/ | http://www.y2knews.com/
Year 2000 Computer Manufacturer Listing
http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/COMPLIST.html
Microsoft Year 2000 resources
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/topics/year2k/default.htm
IBM Year 2000 resources
http://www.pc.ibm.com/year2000/index.html
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/topics/year2k/product/product.htm
Listing of Corel Products for Year 2000 compliance.
https://livewire.corel.com/cfscripts/y2k/index.cfm
WordPerfect 6.1 Specific
http://kb.corel.com/kbdocs/Cws16/wp61win/WP61WIN_18667.htm

Be aware that some sites on the internet will try to use scare tactics in order to sell their Year 2000 fixes. The closer we get to the millenium the more desperate these sales pitches will become. We realize that the Year 2000 will pose some problems, but be assured that the best way to protect your data is to make backups of all important files. Use removable media such as floppies or zip drives for backups. Be concerned about your computer and the Year 2000 but try not to let that concern translate into panic.