I had an old problem come back to haunt me today.

I had a client where one workstation on the NT4.0 network would

GPF when starting OI v3.6 responding with a string of exceptions.

They could also NOT install any Microsoft product even Win98.!!

After 6 hours the client (with the help of Microsoft Help Desk)

tracked it down to the computer's date being set to 2099.

In my application I DO NOT AT ANY POINT set Date(), nor do I

access DOS to execute the DATE command. I use DATE() and TIMEDATE() to extract the current system but nowhere do I set the system date.

Can ANYBODY give me a clue as to WHY this could be happening ???

Is the any code in OENGINE.EXE that might do anything like this ???

Is it a virus (undetectable) ???

All and any assistance appreciated.

Tony

Tony,

See //www.revelation.com/WEBSITE/DISCUSS.NSF/f12696d31000b22a8525652b00831bb2/40E42F4E2CFDE524852565670045696F.

- Oystein -

Oystein

Yeh thanks, I sent searching after posting the problem and found responses/topic discussion the symptom and the solution but nobody, not even Microsoft, can point the finger at the cause.

Microsoft suspects maybe System Agent in Win95 *maybe* the cause.

My client is pretty frustrated at her lost time, but what can I say?

She's blaiming my OI app. I can't point the finger elsewhere without something to show her where somebody admits there's a problem.

I'll be sending her some of the posts that I printed following your link plus others, but the problems is it happened yesterday in the middle of a save process. OI GPFd crashed the computer, screwed up the indexes, and proceeded for crash (GPF) if we tried to start OI.

The *last* thing I thought of was the Date ! , well at least the last thing I yesterday. Funnily enough, today whilst I was sitting there looking at the GPF message, a little voice whispered ever so softly "maybe it a date issue" - but hey, hindsight make for spectacular perception!

I'd love to be able to reproduce it, but as with everything Microsoft, it's too damn complex a machine to expect all of the cogs to mesh all the time.

Here looking to Windows 2020!

Tony,

If it isn't virus related, then it's a crook BIOS

that someone's tested then forgotten.

There is no date set code in OI (or any Revelation

Software product) that I know of. The system calls

are reasonably compact (see SENL for the AREV $SETDATE

code - you can do it in about 10 bytes of hex!)

Worse, I suspect that such virii are likely to be

piggybacked on some "free" Y2K test software.

Quarantine the PC, test all other system dates on

the network, and get a recent virus checker.

Check the BIOS battery backup is OK, and if viral

FDISK the hard disk, remove the partitions, then

start again.

Email me if you need any further assistance.

Steve.

Tony,

Can't help you much on this, but here's a user story that I found.

If you can track down somebody who had the problem but never used OpenInsight your user might be half convinced your app is innocent.

Btw - it'd be interesting to hear an opinion from RevSoft on this matter.

- Oystein -

Oystein,

it'd be interesting to hear an opinion from RevSoft on this matter

The system date doesn't typically change itself, and it is ludicrous to blame OpenInsight since it has no reason to (let alone any code that would/could) change it.

It could be anything from a Windows bug (including the 99,999 applications that are "integral parts of the OS") to a network driver or application that tries to automatically sync the workstation date/time with a server date/time.

Cameron Purdy

Revelation Software

Sorry, Cameron. I didn't really believe OI could be the cause of the problem. But with your statement at least Tony is in a better position to defend his app against his client's accusations.

- Oystein -

Many thanks,

I didn't believe it was OI or my app.

But something (pseudo) official is always very helpful.

Tony

Tony,

I would definitely re-Flash the BIOS in that machine. I had the same version with a bad-bios revision on my laptop. The thing would suddenly crash, and when I rebooted, it would just hang at the mesmerizing Windows95 splash screen. I almost called Dell about it, but thankfully I decided to check out the CMOS–only to notice that my date was set several millenia ahead.

Annoyed, I tried reinstalling the OS. No result. The answer: a newer BIOS revision from the manufacturer completely alleviated the problem.

Definitely something to keep in mind, and a good housekeeping tip at that, but YMMV

-Scott Revelation

Don't let thebigkahuna@revelation.com fool you! OpenInsight consistantly modifies the time and date. That's how sales@revelation.com've been able to create speed increases in the product. What…it's only been 10 seconds..where do you get an hour and a half from?

garygnu@compuserve.com

Gary,

That's interesting news. I look forward to when they manage to run time backwards. Wouldn't that be great for fixing GFEs?!

- Oystein -

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