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Y2k safeguards for your PC

(c) 1999 by William A. Plice, III and Stephen M. Schumacher


Basic Y2k safeguards for your PC

1) Don't leave your PC running during Y2k rollover (midnight on December 31, 1999). The first time you use your computer after rollover, check to make sure the date is correct. If not, fix it. (You can do this by opening the "Date/Time" Control Panel in Windows or by typing DATE at the DOS prompt.)

2) If your computer applications do anything that depends on dates, back up your data files and take some extra time to make sure things are being done correctly.


Advanced Y2k safeguards for your PC

You can find a checklist of preventative steps at http://www.cinderella.co.za/cindmeth.htm, geared for ensuring that even the oldest PCs keep working into the next century. However, for the vast majority of recent PCs, we feel that carrying out this checklist demands far too much time and technical proficiency compared to the basically minor Y2k risks they face.

One possibility raised by the checklist is that the Real Time Clock in some PCs might get reset back to zero after Y2k rollover, appearing externally as the year 1980. This problem transcends Y2k, because it could happen any year due to lightning, CMOS battery failure, plugging in new motherboard components, etc. The Cinderella checklist warns that the Windows 95 Registry could be corrupted and cause boot failure if a PC restarts with a 1980 date, but we're not clear why this would corrupt the Registry -- the main risk we see is just that data files will get the wrong timestamp until the bad date is noticed and fixed.

Since a simple remedy exists that automatically protects against 1980 dates during Y2k or power failure any day, you might want to download the tiny program http://www.ghsport.com/public/IF1980.EXE to your C:\ directory and insert the word IF1980 on its own line at the top of C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT. Whenever your PC restarts, if the date is 1980 you'll be asked to fix it.

Another way to do the same thing is to create a new file named C:\IF1980.BAS and paste in the following line:

WHILE RIGHT$(DATE$,4)="1980":SHELL "DATE":WEND:SYSTEM

Then insert the two word command QBASIC/RUN IF1980.BAS on its own line at the top of C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT. (Be careful making changes to AUTOEXEC.BAT -- mistakes can lock up your PC more surely than Y2k!). You also need to copy QBASIC.EXE to C:\, which can be found in C:\DOS on DOS or Windows 3 systems, or in \OTHER\OLDMSDOS on the Windows 95 CD-ROM.

Be aware that the Cinderella checklist instructs you to change your PC to the ISO8601 date/time format, which uses a leading 4-digit year and 24-hour clock (e.g. 2000-01-01 24:00:00). This format is unambiguous (no confusion internationally whether 2-3 means February 3 or March 2) and saves work for programmers by being in the natural sort order. What's not clear is what this format has to do with protecting your computer against Y2k.

ISO8601 promoters seem to be piggybacking their agenda on top of Y2k concerns, trying to push people into switching in the media rush to be "compliant". If you like the ISO8601 format, feel free to configure your PC using the instructions on the Cinderella checklist -- but if you're only interested in protecting the data on your PC, you needn't bother.


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