Microsoft Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure & Resource Center

Product Summary

Product: Office Professional 97 Version: 8.0 Category: Compliant* Operating System: 32-Bit Win Language: Russian Release Date: 01 Nov 1996 Operational Range: - Prerequisites: Office 97 Service Release 2 and Micorosft Jet 3.5 Update; Outlook 97 Year 2000 Software Update Product Dependencies: Product specific, see the links to product guides in the table below. Clock Dependencies: Product specific, see the links to product guides in the table below. Last Updated: 14 Sep 1999

Product Details

Operational Range for Data: Product specific, see the table below Product Maintenance: While Microsoft continues to recommend that customers install the most current Service Pack/Release for non-Year 2000 reasons, we understand that, for many reasons, this may not be possible. In order to aid our customers' Year 2000 efforts, Microsoft intends to maintain Office 97 Service Release 2 as compliant through January 1, 2001. Newer Service Packs are also to be maintained as compliant, and may include additional non-Year 2000 updates. This is intended to minimize the Year 2000 as a reason to upgrade. The following table lists products in Office Professional 97, summarizes how they handle dates, and lists their operational ranges. For more information, see the links to specific product guides. Product name and link to product guide Summary of how product handles dates Operational range for data Compliance rating Access 97 Dates can be input in both predefined and custom formats via an input mask. Predefined formats include a short date format, which forces users to enter 2-digit dates. A custom format can be created to limit date entry to 4-digit years. If an input mask is not used (the default behavior), dates can be entered in 2- or 4-digit formats. Dates can be displayed in predefined and custom formats by using the Format property and Format function. 01 Jan 200 through 31 Dec 9999 Compliant, with installation of Office 97 SR-2 and Microsoft Jet 3.5 Update Excel 97 Dates are stored as numeric values and formatted according to one of several default formats, the most common being the system short date. If the system short date is a 2-digit format, even if the user enters a 4-digit year, it displays as 2 digits. To avoid this, users can change their system short date to a 4-digit format. 01 Jan 1900 through 31 Dec 9999 Compliant, with installation of Office 97 SR-2 Outlook 97 Dates are stored and manipulated as full dates (for example, March 15, 2005) and are displayed in 2- and 4-digit formats according to the format selected by the user. 01 Jan 1601 through 31 Dec 4500 Compliant, with installation of Office 97 SR-2 PowerPoint 97 Dates are stored in string format or a metacharacter placeholder that obtains and displays the current system time as a string. PowerPoint calls the GetDateFormat system function to convert the current date to a string according to the user-selected system settings. System dependent Compliant, with installation of Office 97 SR-2 Word 97 Dates are stored as simple text strings or as a 32-bit integer. The date is represented by a 4-digit year. Dates saved with versions of documents retain their 4-digit year designations regardless of display. 01 Jan 1900 through 31 Dec 2411 Compliant, with installation of Office 97 SR-2 Office 97 Service Release (SR) 2 is required for Year 2000 compliance. SR-2 can be Download from http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/Articles/sr2fact.htm. The changes in Office 97 that were made in SR-2, including year 2000 updates, are listed in http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q151/0/20.asp. All year 2000 issues reported as fixed in SR-2 exist in SR-1 and in the base Office 97 product. Office 97 Professional ValuPak Content: File Viewers: The Word, Excel, Snapshot (Access) and PowerPoint viewers included in the Microsoft Office Professional ValuPak have been tested for year 2000 compliance. The PowerPoint 4 viewer makes use of the PowerPoint 7 translator. That translator is updated with Office SR-2 to correctly display two digit years. There are no other known issues. Avery Label Wizard: See http://www.avery.com/resource_center/faq_recSel.html?filename=/disk2/faqs/FAQ0014.html for current information regarding the Avery Label Wizard. Lotus cc:Mail support: Microsoft Outlook Support for Lotus cc: Mail requires an update obtained from Office 97 SR-2. Outlook Import/Export filters: See Outlook 97 Product Guide for current information and availability of updates. MS Camcorder: No date handling issues. Content files: Animated GIFs; animated cursors; additional help files; sounds; additional templates and forms; backgrounds and textures. No date handling issues. Wizards (various): No date handling issues. Word Converter (including Far East document converters and Word 97 converter): No date handling issues. Software Patches (various): No date handling issues. Office 97 Upgrade Wizard: Offclean.dll removes all templates except those installed in recent months. This does not affect Year 2000 compliance; however, it could affect Year 2000 testing because moving the system clock ahead to test could cause more templates to be removed than would be removed otherwise. See also the following Product Guides: Internet Explorer (32 bit), ODBC Core Components, Microsoft Data Access Components, ActiveMovie. Common date-handling across all Office programs: Except where noted by a product guide, Office programs get their Year 2000-related date information from core Office code The following information refers to the code that is shared between Office 97 documents. Please see the individual product guides for more information about specific products. Dates and times that are displayed or that can be queried by the user are obtained from the operating system date and time, stored as 4-digit-year dates, and displayed according to user settings in the operating system. Setup has no date sensitivity except in the file removal DLL. See "Testing guidelines and recommendations," below, for testing implications. Two-digit shortcut handling: Because file creation dates far in the future make little sense, the Advanced Find functionality uses a 10-year window from the current date to identify the appropriate century. Logic across individual programs within Office is designed to be appropriate for each program and can be found in the individual product guides. The Office Document Properties dialog box stores and displays file date information consistent with the long date format set in Regional Settings in the Windows Control Panel. Because the date formatting used in the Custom Document Properties dialog box does not properly recognize 2-digit years past 1999, organizations using dates in custom properties should include 4-digit years. This problem is quite apparent and easily corrected in the user interface. It does not occur when saving custom document properties using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Common date usage errors: Data exchange between Office programs should avoid the use of plain text data. If necessary, plain text data should be saved and manipulated using the full 4-digit year. VBA and ODBC will correctly handle all Office date typed data. Text values that contain date data should be verified to ensure they contain the full 4-digit year. Data entered or imported into Office programs such as Word or PowerPoint, which do not have data typing in the document format, will be treated as simple text. As a result, those programs should not be used to store dates that calculations are based on (except in the instance of document properties). Standard document properties can be consistently queried and used across all Office programs for date queries and calculations, both programmatically and through the user interface. However, user-defined custom properties could generate inconsistencies. For more information about common date usage errors in a specific program, see the product guide for that program. Testing guidelines and recommendations: In general, avoid testing in a production environment because side effects with other noncompliant products cannot be predicted. Interoperability testing across all Office products can be conducted safely. Offclean.dll--the only date-sensitive portion of Office setup--removes all templates except those installed in recent months. This does not affect Year 2000 compliance; however, it could affect Year 2000 testing because moving the system clock ahead to test could cause more templates to be removed than would be removed otherwise. For program-specific testing guidelines and recommendations, see the product guide for that program. Area Subarea Testing notes File Open/Save dialog box document properties Document management features include File Open/Save bringing up the proper "OK to Replace?" confirmation dialog box when attempting to save a file after the date/time has been changed; display of dates in results pane of dialog; sorting of dates in results pane of the File Open/Save dialog box Find Fast Creation date of index Create an index with the date set to the year 2000. Click Index, create index, select the index mentioned, and then click Information. Ensure that the date shown says the year 2000 or 00, depending on the regional settings. Last modified date of index Have Find Fast set to update itself every 3 minutes. Set the system date to December 31, 1999, and have it roll over to the year 2000. Verify that the updating mechanism for Find Fast is not affected. Creation date of file Create a file created on January 1, 2000. Perform a search using an Office program for files created after December 30, 1999, and verify that the file was found. Last modified date of file Create a file last modified on January 1, 2000. Perform a search using an Office program for files last modified after December 30, 1999, and verify that the file was found. Last printed date of file Create a file last modified on January 1, 2000. Perform a search using an Office program for files last printed after December 30, 1999, and verify that the file was found. Custom date property Create a file with a custom date property of January 1, 2000. Perform a search using an Office program for files with that property set to a date later than December 30, 1999, and verify that the file was found. Leap year testing Repeat the five preceding tests, substituting February 29 and 28, 2000, 2001, and 2004, for the dates used. Log file Verify that the log file shows the year 00 for any logs in the year 2000. Displayed dates Verify that the displayed dates for the creation/last modified dates of the index show 00 for the year 2000. Setup Complete Install Maintenance Mode Remove All Complete Install is a superset of other options. It should be performed on clean machines and on machines with Office 97 installed, with all combinations of Complete Install, Maintenance Mode, and Remove All spanning the turn of the century. Office Professional 97 uses a number of Microsoft Office 97 shared files for the implementation of dialogs and toolbars, task automation, online help, installation, graphics, file find and file I/O. For additional information that is appropriate for Office Professional 97, please refer either to the document for the particular Office version that this application came with, or, in the case of a standalone product, to any version 97 Microsoft Office document.

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ANY MICROSOFT YEAR 2000 STATEMENTS MADE TO YOU IN THE COURSE OF PROVIDING YEAR 2000 RELATED UPDATES, YEAR 2000 DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS, OR REMEDIATION SERVICES (IF ANY) ARE SUBJECT TO THE YEAR 2000 INFORMATION AND READINESS DISCLOSURE ACT (112 STAT. 2386). IN CASE OF A DISPUTE, THIS ACT MAY REDUCE YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS REGARDING THE USE OF ANY SUCH STATEMENTS, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED BY YOUR CONTRACT OR TARIFF.

This site is being designated as a Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure and the information contained herein is provided pursuant to the terms hereof and the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act.