 |
Take inventory of
your computing environment. It is important to assess the
Year 2000 functionality of the operating system and RTC/BIOS
combination you are dealing with on each machine. |
|
Use Microsoft
operating system solutions. Install the free Windows
Update for your operating system. From time to time
Microsoft makes available free Year 2000 software updates for
its operating systems and applications. Microsoft recommends
that you install the applicable Year 2000 software updates
prior to conducting Year 2000 rollover tests. |
|
Use the testing
steps above to assess how your machine's RTC/BIOS handles the
rollover to Year 2000 with your Windows operating systems.
At the end of testing be sure to reset the operating system to
the current date/time. |
|
Manually set the
date to address the most common rollover error. If during
testing you encounter the most common rollover error (Case 1)
and if the machine is running an operating system such as
Windows« 3.x, Windows« 95, or MS-DOS« version 5.x or later,
manually reset the date. The system time should work properly
from that point forward. In fact, this will be the most common
practice for home users with this error. |
|
Contact your PC's
manufacturer for assistance. If you encounter other types
of rollover errors during testing, contact the PC's
manufacturer. Many PC manufacturers have included the required
BIOS logic for handling the Year 2000 transition for quite
some time. However, some older machines may not have
upgradeable BIOS (or no BIOS upgrade was made available). Many
manufacturers have developed device drivers to compensate for
the RTC limitations of systems that are not Year 2000 ready.
|
|
Use third-party
application solutions. Another option is to use one of the
many products that have been developed to address BIOS issues.
See the Year 2000 Tools
section of the Microsoft Year 2000 Readiness & Disclosure
Center Web site for links to third party suppliers. Microsoft
has not tested, and makes no warranties concerning, any
third-party products or resources such as those described or
referred to above. |
|
Implement a time
synchronization service. Users with networked machines can
install a program to synchronize system time with an external
time source such as another computer or an atomic clock. A
time synchronization service comes in the Windows NT 4.0
Resource Kit. An updated version of this Time Service is
available by reading the Windows
NT 4.0 Resource Kit compliance document.
|
