There are Five Steps to the Resolution of PC Year 2000 Problems

The resolution of Year 2000 problems on Desktop PCs requires that five separate but co-dependent sets of activities must be addressed. These five steps cover:

• The hardware
• The operating system
• The commercial application software
• The developed software
• The external interfaces to other systems and contingency planning

THE HARDWARE

Analyzing and Fixing the BIOS and RTC

The odds are good that your PC has some kind of millennium bug in its hardware. Estimates indicate that up to 93 percent of PC BIOSes built before 1996 will not switch over properly from 1999 to 2000. The estimate drops to around 11 percent for computers built in 1998. So it most likely that you will need to check your hardware for Y2K problems; it's fairly easy to do, and in most cases, the solution is painless. In addition to updating the BIOS, solutions include patches and the new operating systems which can sense the problem, and in most situations, correct it. Most vendors are providing lots of information and solution advice at their websites.

THE OPERATING SYSTEM

Assessing and Fixing the Operating System

Almost every operating system, including those introduced in 1998, will have problems with the year 2000 unless you apply the fixes and updates that the vendors are developing, so check with your operating system vendor about Y2K compliance.

For example, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, and the various versions of Windows NT require updates and/or patches. Check Microsoft's Year 2000 Product Guide website for specifics.

Similarly, PC DOS 2000 is IBM's only operating system that is Y2K READY as it originally shipped. IBM recommends you update to PC DOS 2000 from earlier versions of DOS 2.x and the various versions of OS/2 and DOS 7 operating systems need fixpacks to make them Year 2000 Ready. For current information about the Y2K status of IBM's products go to their Y2K website.

The same type of situation exists for Novell products, where NetWare 4.2 and 5 are Year 2000 ready, but patches are necessary for NetWare 3.12 and 4.11. Information on the status of Novell products is also available on-line.

NOTE

Even with Y2K-compliant versions of the operating system, make sure the appropriate operating system settings are in effect if you want to force the use of 4 digits on all displays. Many operating systems allow a short date which shows only the last two digits of the year even though the operating system itself is using the full 4-digit year internally.

For example, to set the ISO 8601:1988 format YYYY-MM-DD on a Windows 95-based system, go to the Start Button--Settings/Control Panel, double click the Regional Settings icon, then select the Date tab and enter "YYYY-MM-DD" in the "Short date style:" field. As mentioned above, this setting is used for diplay only, and doesn't affect how applications get their date information. Using a 4-digit year short-date style will force all Microsoft Office applications running on the system to use this format too.

Likewise, on a Macintosh MacOS 7.5 or above requires that you have specified the YYYY-MM-DD for the short date format order and checked the Show Century box under Date Formats... in the Date & Time Control Panel if you want 4-digit dates to be used.

THE COMMERCIAL APPLICATION SOFTWARE

Analyzing and Fixing the Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Software Applications

Each software application and utility that you purchase has the potential to have a Year 2000 problem.

The first step to dealing with this issue is to identify and inventory all of the purchased software applications that you use on your Personal Computers. After creating this list you may want to identify how each item is used so that you gain an understanding on the level of criticality of each item. Basically you want to understand which pieces of software are nice to have and which ones are critical to key things you need to do.

Now you need to determine the compliance of these applications. Unless you have the time and people to test each package you will probably need to rely on the manufacturer of the applications for this information. For help with this, please see our DISA COTS Product Compliance Catalog.

THE DEVELOPED APPLICATION SOFTWARE

Dealing with Your Own Software

The approach for dealing with your developed applications starts off in much the same way you deal with purchased software. Like your purchased applications and utilities, those that your organization developed for itself, or had someone else develop, each of them has the potential of having a Year 2000 problem.

Once again, the first step to dealing with this issue is to identify and inventory. Now you are focusing on the software applications that you had developed for use on your Personal Computers. After creating this list you may want to identify how each item is used so that you gain an understanding on the level of criticality of each item. Basically you want to understand which pieces of software are nice to have and which ones are critical to key things you need to do.

Now you need to determine the compliance of these applications. Unless you have the time and people to test each package to find out which have problems you will probably need work with the developers of the original software to get this information. There is help available in laying out the process for doing the assessment of your developed software and then selecting and implementing your fixes and getting the corrected software tested and re-deployed to your Personal Computers.

THE EXTERNAL INTERFACES TO OTHER SYSTEMS

Dealing with Your Data

So you've bought new software, updated your own code, and updated your BIOS. You've got the Y2K bug beat six ways to Sunday, right? Wrong.

Data from outside sources can still throw a monkey-wrench into your well-oiled Personal Computer. Data that you import from another program into your spreadsheet may contain dates in a two-digit format. If it does, your software will assign a century based on its own pivot year--but will it be the right century? If you're sharing data with programs that aren't ready, your problems are still here.

You need to work with the people responsible for these other systems that you exchange data with and rely upon to do your job and manage your interfaces. Get an agreement on how you will use two-digit dates or whether you will be moving to four-digit years in your date data.

Finally, you need to think about Contingency Planning. You may have missed something or you may not have been given the right information by a supplier, developer, or trading partner. If your system still fails you want to have thought through and organized a plan for what to do to keep your organization functioning to the best of its ability.