Y2K and Revelation Applications (AREV Specific)
At 12 NOV 1999 06:51:31AM Jocelyn Amon wrote:
This is a message from a programmer with 15 years Revelation experience to those responsible for mission-critical applications which have not yet been Y2K-checked.
It is important to Y2K-check your applications as soon as possible if you are to ensure that your software will continue to function correctly next year. I have personally been involved in several Advanced Revelation and Revelation G Y2K audits. Most applications had Y2K issues to resolve and most of these were of a minor nature. However, some of the Y2K problems would have had a major impact if they had not been fixed.
Previously when I have posted on this topic, some of you have responded with derisive comments indicating that there is obviously some skepticism that Revelation could possibly have any Y2K issues associated with it. I hope most of you realise by now that this is a very real problem and have taken the necessary steps to ensure your organisation's software will work correctly next year. If you disagree that there is a problem then please let me (and others) know why you consider this to be so - and please don't hide behind an alias!
The problem with Revelation and Y2K is not one of displaying two digit years. I don't even regard this as a real problem in most cases. The most common Y2K problems I've seen are hardcoded 19's and using the two digit year in calculations - adding or subtracting 1 from the YY value. Sometimes these problems are easy to fix on failure. Sometimes they involve major changes - particularly when the YY value is used in keys or indexes. These problems may cause records to be incorrectly purged or values to be incorrectly totaled. Some require file redesign and data conversion. Most would be detected some time after 1 January 2000 such as at month end or the end of the financial period.
The problems are particularly difficult to resolve when source code is not available or the source code that is located does not match the object version that is running live.
I am mentioning this because I am aware that there are still many sites that have done little or nothing to check their code for Y2K problems. Many of you have requested my free Y2K manual and some have used the software that I have developed and market, to scan for Y2K problems but time is running out for those yet to start.
If you need to know more on this subject, check the Revelation link at:
or use the following link to my web site:
http://www.ts.co.nz/~finsol/scan.htm
Just because I and many others currently earn our livings detecting and fixing Y2K bugs should not discredit what we have to say about the issue. Who else would know better than us about the Y2K problem?
Jocelyn Amon
At 12 NOV 1999 10:17AM Mike Ruane, WinWin Solutions Inc wrote:
Jocelyn-
We've used your scan software on 8 or 9 systems- we're very happy with it. We take the reports it generates, present them to the user, indicate the level of severity of the problem, and let them decide what to do.
We're very happy with the product and service that you've been providing.
Mike Ruane
WinWin Solutions Inc.
WWW.WinWinSol.Com
At 12 NOV 1999 04:34PM Steve Smith wrote:
Windows NT 4.0 users please not that NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 (SP6) is now available from www.microsoft.com and does include Y2K fixes.
On 24/7 systems on Windows 95, please disable your Windows 95 daylight savings feature (double click on the clock time in the traybar, select the Time Zone tab and uncheck "Automatically adjust for daylight savings"). This will stop some versions of Win 95 stopping for a rollforward confirmation at midnight 31/12/99.
Steve