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There has been much said of the short date format and whether or
not it is connected to the Year 2000 problem.
Microsoft has correctly stated that the compliance of Windows itself
is not effected by the short date format. However, some interpret Microsoft's
statement to mean that the setting of the short date format is unrelated to the Year 2000
problem. In our opinion, this is not true because many manufacturers of third party
software have explicitly or implicitly stated that their products depends on the the
setting of the short date format.
In general, the short date format should be set to a four digit
year with a few notable exceptions (based upon
software installed and used on the individual PC). Using a four digit year has the
following advantages:
 | It makes data entered unambiguous to the end user how the computer
is interpreting their entered data. For example, with the short date format set to a
two digit year, one can often not be sure if a date of "12/31/40" refers to a
date in 1940 or 2040. With the date format set to a four digit year, it is obvious
to the user. |
| Some software determines the format it will exchange data with
other applications depending upon the short date format. This dependence is not
always documented in the manufacturer's Y2K statements. When in doubt, one would
generally want applications to exchange data using a four digit year format. |
There are several products that require setting the short date
format to a four digit year. The reasons include:
| Products which determine how their dates are stored based upon the short date setting. |
| Products which will have their input default to the range 1900-1999 if it is
set to a two digit year setting (the date may or may not be able to be entered as four
digits with a short date setting of two digit years). |
| Products which automatically
modify the current Windows short date format to permit it to run |
| Products with incorrect date
displays |
| Unspecified reasons |
Some products explicitly instruct the user to leave the short
date setting setting at a two digit years for the following reasons:
| Products which were designed with inadequate space in reports for
a four digit year |
| Products which have hard coded interpretations of date formats |
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The following require a 4-digit short date format
The following products determine how
their dates are stored by the setting of the short date format:
| Gryphon: case
& practice management software for lawyers. The company's Y2K statement says it
is a problem which will be fixed in the next release, but until then set the short date
format to a four digit year. |
| Pendragon Software
Corp: Forms 1.x (problem was fixed in later releases). |
The following
products will modify the Windows short date format for you automatically to a four digit
year to permit the application to run
The following
products state that entering a date with a short date set to a two digit year will result
in the date being interpreted as being between 1900 and 1999:
The following products state that
the short date setting to a four-digit year is required for some versions of their
products:
The following product will
have an incorrect date display if the short date is set to a two-digit year. Dates
in the next century will be displayed with three digits (e.g. February 3, 2000 will be
displayed 02/03/100 if the short date format is set to mm/dd/yy).
The following require a 2-digit short date format
The following products
instruct you to leave the short date setting set to a two digit year or have other
difficulties with a four digit year setting:
| Americas Software
Corp: ASSIST. The short date format is required to be in the format M/dd/yy for
importing of transactions to work. |
| ChartSmart 2000:
The short date format must be set to mm/dd/yy. |
| Chrompack
International: CP-SCANVIEW 4.00. States that this version of this product can
only have its short date format begin with month or day, but not year. |
| Clark Systems Corp:
MEMOR™, DEVOR™, REGI™. The manufacturer instructs you to enter all
dates with 4-digit years, but leave the display set at 2-digits or some reports &
screens will not have enough room to print the 4 digits. If you just enter a two
digit year, it will assume the date is in the range 1900-1999. |
| Inline Internet
Systems, Inc: iSPI 2.2 |
| Medical
Economics Company: PDR Electronic Library |
| Microsoft:
Schedule + versions 7.0, 7.0a and 7.5. If the short date field is set to a four
digit year and the user types a two digit year, the date is interpreted as being between
1900-1999. A patch is available to fix the problem. |
| Risk Management
Technologies: Chem Alert I. At one time this product was believed compliant by
the manufacturer if the short date format was set to a two digit year. However, they
have since learned that other third party products were not compliant in that
configuration, so only Chem Alert II is compliant. |
| University
of South Australia: BLOOD. This is left in the list to illustrate a problem:
incompatible settings. This academic program was written in Visual Basic 3 and
requires a short date setting of "dd/mm/yy". However, Visual Basic 3
assumes all two digit years are between 1900 and 1999. |
| Veritas
(was Seagate): Backup Exec for Netware. Version 7.11 of this product produces a GPF
when the short date format is set to a four digit year. This problem was repaired in
a subsequent release.
Other interesting links related to this topic
|
A Delphi oriented
discussion including links to source code to modify the short date format.
Microsoft's
statement that the short date format is a display only setting, not related to the
compliance of Windows. It was because of this statement that this page became
necessary. Several companies took this statement to indicate that the short date
format was unrelated to any products Y2K compliance.
University
of California, Berkeley has a very broad discussion on the topic.
Visit some of our other informative pages
Be sure to visit some of our other informative pages including:
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