Microsoft Uncovers More Y2K Issues In Win 98

( 4/23/99; 5:00 PM EST)
By Andy Patrizio, Windows Magazine

Microsoft has found still more year 2000-related issues in Windows 98 and is currently working on a fix, which it expects to issue in the next few weeks.

The changes will also be rolled into Windows 98Special Edition, an update consisting primarily of bug fixes and Internet Explorer 5.0, due later this year.

Microsoft said that the incompatibilities pose no threat of data loss or system corruption, and that users are not likely to encounter these issues in their regular daily computer use.

The three newly discovered issues are documented at the Microsoft Year 2000 Resource Center, and the fix will be posted on the Windows Update website. The issues are:

The OLE Automation Library routines for interpreting two-digit years cuts off years at 2029, so two-digit years with "30" will be interpreted as 1930 instead of 2030, regardless of the date settings

Two-digit dates don't work for DOS XCopy on systems using the international date format of "yy-mm-dd" instead of "dd-mm-yy," as is used in the United States. When a system is configured to use the yy-mm-dd format, XCopy will not accept 00 for the year 2000.

International versions of Windows 98 that use a non-Gregorian calendar will give an error in certain Visual Basic applications that use dates. This does not affect English versions of Windows 98.