Y2K Checklist

Checking for Y2K Problems:

PC/Windows

Macintosh

Additional Resources

Checking your PC for Y2K problems

There are two potential areas for Y2K problems in your PC: hardware and software.

Hardware

Your PC hardware contains a built-in clock that keeps track of the date and time. If this clock is not designed to handle the new millenium, your computer could fail to start up or begin to behave strangely when 2000 comes.

There is a very good page of information and instructions for identifying this problem published by the University of California, Berkeley.

Software

Even if your computer's clock can handle the change, it's possible that you might have programs that will fail or behave strangely as a result of Y2K.

Identifying programs with Y2K problems

If you have the same programs on your home computer as you have at work (particularly if they are common programs like Microsoft Word), you can generally be confident that your computing support staff will alert you to any potential problems.

If you have programs on a personal computer that you do not use at work, you may want to find out whether they have Y2K problems or not.

• In general, unless a program actively uses or manipulate dates (as in calendar programs, spreadsheets, time-logging programs, etc.) it should not be affected by Y2K. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are uncommon.

• Also, versions of programs that have been released since 1998 by major software companies (Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, etc.) are probably free of serious Y2K problems. If you are using versions of software other than the latest, your best defense again Y2K problems is to upgrade to a new version.

Programs that are free of Y2K problems are called "Y2K Compliant." There are two ways to determine the compliance of a program. The first is to go to the web site of the company that makes the program and look for a statement of compliance.

The second way to determine compliance is to consult a Y2K compliance database. These have the advantage of collecting lots of information in one place, but they force you to rely on a third party and may not be fully up to date. The best such database we have found is called Vendor2000.

To use this service, follow the link, search for the company that makes the program you're interested in, follow the products link, and click on the name of the program to see the compliance status. Obviously not everything is there, but a lot is. For more information, you may still need to visit a company's web site.