FREE ESSAY ON WINDOWS NT 4.0 WORKSTATION YEAR 2000 COMPLIANCE

WINDOWS NT 4.0 WORKSTATION YEAR 2000 COMPLIANCE

Background: To determine whether or not WinNT 4.0 is within year 2000 compliance. From the
outlined testing procedures found in the 'YEAR 2000 Testing memo', it was decided that
since WinNT is an OS it is 'date sensitive'. From this, all outlined tests were
performed. The data gathered is represented in table form.
Equipment: To test, a Compaq Prolinea 590 was used with the latest bios installed
(04/09/97). The machine had WINNT 4.0 installed with Service Pack 3.0 patch for the OS.
Testing Procedure: To determine if Windows NT 4.0 would roll to the appropriate date, the
control panel applet DATE&TIME(d&t) was used to change the dates. The machine d&t were
set to the day before each date outlined in the memo. The machine date was changed to a
control time of 11:59:45 PM in each case. The machine date was then allowed to roll to
the date in question. The machine d&t was then reset to the previous date and control
time. This time the machine was rebooted while the time was rolling to the date in
question. 
In each case, after the time rolled, the date was checked to find the correct date. WinNT
Explorer was then opened and a file in the 'c:\winnt' directory was changed to check
whether or not a saved file corresponded with the correct date. The data from these tests
is defined in the following table.
'Data & Time Tested' column are the Control values found in the memo. Both 'Post Test
Date' columns are the dates found in each instance after the date rolled from the
'Date&Time Tested' column to the date in question. The 'Post Explorer check' was tested
to see if the machine reported the right time. 'Post modification dates' are file dates
after the file was saved to check the corresponding date. In each test, no problems with
the d&t were encountered. 
Results: The testing actually caused several different things to happen to the OS.
Whenever I rolled the date forward, The following directories changed the date associated
with them:
C:\Winnt, C:\Winnt\System32, C:\Winnt\Fonts, C:\Temp.
This seemed strange because the machine time stamp wouldn't roll back when the time was
changed backwards, but this isn't part of the test procedure. When the time actually
changes the date will roll forward and stay. It won't roll backwards. I don't know if
this affects the testing but it would be totally impossible to rebuild the machine each
time the test was run. This would take many hours to do and it probably won't affect the
data anyway.
Before I started testing, I looked on the Internet to see what Microsoft said about WinNT
4.0 and the y2k problem. On this site, there are links to all Microsoft Products. For
WinNT 4.0, there were 4 problems Microsoft listed as known problems. They are as
follows:
1. When you set an account to expire on Feb 29,2000, User manager displays the following
error.
'February only has 28 days in this year'. Taken from document Q183125 from Microsoft Tech
support for Year 2000 
2. Windows NT might skip a day. When rolling to new dates NT may skip several days ahead.
Taken from document Q180122 from Microsoft Tech support for Year 2000
3. When you use the Winnt Find Files or folders feature, the 2-digit abbreviation of the
year doesn't appear correctly. For example, if the year is set to 2001, when you click on
the DATE MODIFIED tab on the Find: ALL files dialog box, the two digit abbreviation of
the year appears as :1, rather that 01. Taken from document Q183123 from Microsoft Tech
support for Year 2000.
4. When you define a custom property to include a date type in the Microsoft Office the
year may not appear correctly. For example, in Word, if you click properties on the file
menu, click the custom tab, click date in the type field, enter a value of 01/01/01, and
then click add, the date appears as 01/01/1901 rather that 01/01/2001. Taken from
document Q183125 from Microsoft tech support for Year 2000
(These documents are included with this report)
In each case, Microsoft states that if you are having these problems, installation the
next service release should fix these problems although, this release isn't available
yet. During testing, I checked for 2of 4 problems and in each case didn't find them. I
left out items 1,4. Item 1 was left out because in our operation we don't set Local
accounts to expire, we use the Domain model so this testing is more appropriate on the
server, so this isn't an issue with WinNT 4.0 workstation. Item 4 was left out because it
pertains to Microsoft Office, which clearly isn't part of WinNT 4.0 workstation.
Microsoft also states that they have posted 2 hotfix patches that are in BETA to correct
these problems. They then further state that since these drivers are in BETA, do not
install unless you are experiencing these problems. I didn't have any of these issues, so
I didn't install the patch.
In conclusion, Windows NT workstation has a few minor issues pertaining to the year 2000,
but Microsoft promises to have a Service release available to correct these problems. In
the test, only 2 of the 4 given problems were investigated, the other 2 don't affect this
operation. 
For each set of 'Control Data' a result was given in a table format. From these numbers
it can be shown that WinNT 4.0 passed the test outlined in the year 2000 memo. 
Microsoft's known problems were addressed as they applied. Since 2 of the tests didn't
apply, they weren't used the other 2 were tested and found that we were not experiencing
these issues. From this I can safely state that in worst case only a few machines, if
any, will be affected by y2k. If we have machines that are affected, the Service Pack
that Microsoft is supposedly releasing should fix these issues.
Certification Signoff
for
YEAR 2000
Application Certified: May 14,1998
Date (Time-Frame) of User Acceptance Testing: 12/31/98-2/29/2004
List any dates that were not included in your test plan and provide a reason for
excluding those dates: (Refer to the list of Dates outlined in the Year 2000 Testing
Guidelines Document)
All dates outlined in the Memo were compiled.
Additional Comments:
There are some open issues with WinNT 4.0 workstation that Microsoft states 'will be
fixed with the 
Next service release for NT 4.0, this release should apply to any and all problems that
will happen by 
The year 2000.
My Signature denotes my approval of the Year 2000 testing for the application listed
above:
Test Conductor
Date
Project Team Member
Date
Systems Committee Chairperson Date