Microsoft Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure & Resource Center

Product Summary

Product: PowerPoint 97 Version: 8.0 Category: Compliant* Operating System: 32-Bit Win Language: Danish Release Date: 01 Nov 1996 Operational Range: - Prerequisites: Office 97 Service Release 2 Product Dependencies: Microsoft Windows 95; Windows 98, or Windows NT Workstation 3.51 with SP 5 or greater; or Windows NT 4 (no specific SP is required, though SP 2 is recommended; SP2 is required for Far East version of PP97 SR-1). Clock Dependencies: see below Last Updated: 18 Sep 1999

Product Details

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. Operational Range for Data: System dependent Prerequisites: Download a new version of the translator, PP7TRANS.DLL (version 7.07.1060), which is part of the Office 97 SR-2 Patch, available at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/Articles/sr2fact.htm. The changes in Office 97 that were made in SR 2, including Y2K updates, are listed in http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q151/0/20.asp. All Y2K issues reported as fixed in SR2 exist in SR1 and in the base Office 97 product. Clock Dependencies: Both OS and internal clocks are used. The internal clock is used only for time functions in slideshow rehearsal, animations and short delays. PowerPoint uses the Windows GetLocalTime call to get the current date and time from the system. Description of how the product handles dates: Storage.  Microsoft PowerPoint stores dates in string format or a metacharacter placeholder that obtains and displays the current system time as a string. PowerPoint 97 is calling the GetDateFormat system function to convert current date to a string according to the user-selected system settings.  All date handling undergoes the same function. 2-digit shortcut handling: Microsoft PowerPoint handles 2-digit dates for date field display only. User entry is text only and not considered a date representation. There is no conversion for user entry. Common date usage errors: Saving to non-native formats (including for example Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0) may cause loss or incorrect entry of century data for Insert Date and Time functionality. More specifically, presentations created in Microsoft PowerPoint 95 or Microsoft PowerPoint 97 after 1999 with 'update automatically' date formats containing 2-digit years will be incorrectly displayed in PowerPoint 4 as a 2-digit year preceded by a "1".  For Microsoft PowerPoint 97 to execute short dates in the 21st century properly when saving to PowerPoint 4.0 format, a new version of the translator, PP7TRANS.DLL version 7.07.1060 must be downloaded. Download Office 97 SR-2 (PP7TRANS.DLL version 7.07.1060 is included) User applications should not rely on the text date representation within a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation since it is only available as plain text. Query, calculations and other operations are best conducted using standard Document Properties. Testing guidelines and recommendations: The following areas should be examined to verify that dates are being properly used. The table below can be used to guide testing of Microsoft PowerPoint within your organization. Area SubArea       File File Native Text Conversions Graphics Filters Versions  Document Properties Send To Outlook Journal Posting   Microsoft PowerPoint stores dates in string format. Microsoft PowerPoint 97 is calling the GetDateFormat system function to convert today's date to a string.  All date calculation goes through the same function.   Use presentations that contain all possible date formats as test files for open/save, file conversion, printing, and slideshow. Test files should include all Date and Time formats.  On Japanese systems, test files will include FE date formats (e.g., Japanese Emperor date and the Taiwan date). Change systems date prior to the year of 2000. Create and save test files. Change systems date to year of 2000 or later and reopen presentation. Change systems date to year of 2000 or later. Create and save test files.  Change the systems date prior to the year of 2000 and reopen presentation. Save test files in HTML format and reopen in different browsers. Reopen the test file under a localized system where the system clock is set to a date/time in a year greater than or equal to 2000. Edit         View Slide View Outline View Notes Page Slide Show Header and Footer Comments       Insert Date and Time Comments Objects         Tools Meeting Minder       Slide Show         Other Issues (These problems are not specific to a century change, but may be exposed in testing for Year 2000 issues.): 1. Microsoft PowerPoint 97 may display dates improperly in the case where a date is inserted and the presentation is viewed in the same editing session, but the date has changed. 2. Microsoft PowerPoint 97 may display the wrong day of the week when saving a presentation to PowerPoint 4 format.  If a user inserts a date following a format that contains the day of the week, selects 'update automatically', and then saves the file to PP4 format, the day of the week is incremented by one. Example "Monday, April 13, 1998" becomes "Tuesday, April 13, 1998.  This is a generic date display issue unrelated to the Year 2000 specifically.  Please see Knowledge Base article # Q184248  at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q184/2/48.asp Microsoft PowerPoint 97 may change your date and time format when you insert a date to update automatically and then save the file to a PowerPoint 4 format.  The date will still be correct, but it may be in a different format than the one selected.  Example: the date 04-98 may be changed to Apr-98. PowerPoint 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 PowerPoint 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.

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