US magazine reports Y2K problems with NT 4.0

InfoWorld said Friday that tests it had performed in its laboratories showed a potential problem when Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 applications accessed the real time clock (RTC) on PCs. According to the magazine, many applications, particularly in the financial and manufacturing field, directly access the RTC, which still has problems with Year 2000 compliance. Spreadsheets and word processors also use the real time clock to reference essential clock sensitive information, the magazine said. The report said that when InfoWorld technicians used a utility called CMOSView with Microsoft NT 4.0, the value of the real time clock was 0000. Windows 95, on the other hand, managed to read the value correctly. PC manufacturers are still floundering with problems caused by the real time clock but Microsoft will give little re-assurance to its end users, other than saying its Office applications are year 2000 compliant. Earlier this year, it was reported that global positioning satellites (GPS), widely used as navigation aids, could also suffer year 2000 problems. ®