 | 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. Download the Windows® 98 Year 2000 Update at http://www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. Download updates for Windows NT at http://www.microsoft.com/support/winnt/default.htm. Prior to conducting Year 2000 rollover tests, Microsoft recommends that you install these and other free updates for operating systems and applications that Microsoft makes available from time to time. |
| 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 upgradable 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. Select Year 2000 Tools located at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/tools/tools.htm 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 use the time synchronization service that comes in the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit. |
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