page4

The Year 2000 Problem.
(Your Own P.C.)

In this section we will return to the well known Home computer or Small Business computer, of which of course there are millions in existance and in use. Some old, some new, but all except the very latest models could possibly have a problem with the year 2000 ! Much has been said and written and the Web and the World in general is full of advice on what to do, and how to spend your money to ensure your PC is complient or made complient. However as we stated in our opening page, it is by the very nature of the vast numbers of computers in use, a minefield of differing opinions and unfortunately also many gimmicks to entice you to spend your money !!
It is also true that there are many genuine enterprises and companies in existance trying to sell a genuine product, but how do you separate these from the gimmick sellers ??
Before we become involved in this we want to offer you the opportunity to go direct to the page for testing your PC. If you wish to do so, please click on the link and carry on from there.

To Test Page -->

We would classify 'Gimmicks' as those programs that do not attempt to explain the year 2000 hardware problem but tell you to proceed with the tests without any explanation. Also in this class are those that give insufficient tests to fully check your PC's complience. Others that test your PC and tell you its non complient and offer to sell you a fix to rectify it. Some programs we tested were so bad, insufficient and inefficient that they deserve 5 stars for Gimmickry ! At the other end of the scale we found programs that genuinely attempted to test your system properly, produced good reports, and gave good suggestions on what to do if your PC failed any test. "They did not offer a 'fix" ! At this end of the scale, also, we found some good programs that were unfortunately spoiled by trying to be too impressive and carried out 14 or more tests which is frankly far too many and not needed just to test your PC. This kind of 'over' testing could lead to confusion, and a worry for a PC owner if his machine failed just one of these tests.

We should mention here about the problems of supplying a 'fix' to a PC that failed a test. A fix is usually a TSR (terminate and stay resistant) program, that boots up with your PC from the boot files and places itself in memory. This TSR then interupts all calls for 'dates' and ensures that the correct dates in the year 2000 are supplied. In theory this sounds very good, but in practise it can fail for a number of reasons. Why could it fail ? Why is it not recommended ? This single TSR file can become corrupted. The hard disk drive may be changed, and this file left off. A system failure and reinstall could leave this file uninstalled. Removal by mistake. Deliberate removal. etc: If this file were removed then the system dates would be corrupt and software programs would be corrupted and not work properly with the correct year 2000 dates. ! These reasons are valid enough to persuade anyone not to rely on a single TSR file. However many people have and will use them, so the choice is purely up to each individual or company concerned.


If you wish to go to the test page, please click the link shown above (TO TEST PAGE)
If you dont want to go there click the link to continue. >Your P.C.(Contd) ->[Skip the test page !]

<-- Return to Main Page.