Microsoft Windows NT 4.00

PROGRAMS ACCEPTABLE TO THE CINDERELLA COMMUNITY

(1999-06-03) It is recommended that Internet Explorer 5 be installed prior to applying NT service pack 4. Service Pack 4 checks for Y2k dependencies in NT, and should be the minimum level used on Y2k production systems

Assumptions:

Start - Settings - Control Panel - Regional settings

  Date
      Short date style   yyyy-MM-dd    (type in this new default)
      date separator     -
 Time
      Select HH:mm:ss                  (select 24 hour time)

also check correct time zone is set.

Test 1.

1. From bootable Dos disk set date/time as 1999-12-31 23:55
2. Switch off and wait until tickover occurs (+-6 minutes)
3. Switch on and boot NT 4
4. Run Clock application - displays 00:06:55 2000-01-01
In Settings select GMT and check variance between local time and GMT

Result: Acceptability Index 0 - Fully compliant

Test 2.

Result: Acceptability Index 0 - Fully compliant

Where applications use multiple display formats the worst case Index is taken.

System/Pgm      Display             Method  Index Iface Calc Comp Sort

MS NT 4.00        YYYY-MM-DD       (Internat)  0   Y     Y   Y    Y

Note:

AREA: Compliance
TITLE: MS Windows NT Server and the Year 2000 issue
URL: http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/guide/y2k.asp

AREA: Patches
TITLE: Download Microsoft NT 4.0 Service Pack 3
URL: http://www.microsoft.com/support/winnt/nt4sp3.htm

Meaning of Report and Table Headings and Terms

Software Products used in Compliance Testing

Correspondence

At 07:50 1998-06-04 +0200, Andrew Forbes wrote:
>Yes, you are right, and I have had a look at the test reports.  BUT, I
>can't seem to be able to make a bootable diskette for NT, and I am loath to
>test directly on the hard-drive, in case journals/diaries etc are deleted.
> Any suggestions?

Valid comment. Be safe rather than sorry.

Depends what you are testing.
If you are testing the hardware BIOS then it doesn't matter
which operating system you use, you can test under DOS
or whatever. All you need to know is if the machine will
accept a 2000-01-01 date and retain it over a poweroff/up.

You should be able to create a bootable stiffy from the DOS
box under NT. If your system fails Tickover but is recoverable
(i.e. remembers a 2000+ four digit date after poweroff) then
on the day, you boot from stiffy, set the date to 2000-01-01
and from that point on Hex 32 of CMOS will be 20. And NT
and other systems will boot just fine. NT currently does not
set X'32' to 20, but interprets the low order '00' byte to be 2000.
So setting the Century from the stiffy boot solves the problem
where you have multiple OS's on the same machine.

The NT date format change to yyyy-MM-dd is non-intrusive
and does not adversely affect NT current operations, and is recommended
for immediate production use. Use of 4 digit years in spreadsheets and
databases is recommended for immediate implementation.
You should get everyone using this now.

If you are going to set NT itself forward into 2000 then you need
to be careful. Do this on a dedicated test machine, not
a production system. I forgot this rule and expired my system.
You need to test all your applications on this separate
test bed "time machine". If serious problems do occur,
(and this is very rare but has happened) the only correct
recourse is to reinstall from scratch or from backup.
That is the point of Testing. To isolate problem areas before
they can do damage to Production.

I only have the one system, so it gets used for production
and testing. So I am manic about System Backups, image
copies of partition records and boot images. I have
been forced to rebuild my system  several times so I
make sure that I have current boot images and
backups of my configuration files.

Remember to install the NT4 service upgrades (Service
Pack 3) and the NT 4 Y2k fixes (Service Pack 4) from
Microsoft - see Patches section of Cinderella). Be
warned - these are big files. It might be better to get
a CD from your supplier.