Microsoft Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure & Resource Center

Product Summary

Product: Excel 97 Version: 8.0 Category: Compliant* Operating System: 32-Bit Win Language: Chinese - Traditional Release Date: 01 Nov 1996 Operational Range: 01 Jan 1900 - 31 Dec 9999 Prerequisites: Office 97 Service Release 2 Product Dependencies: Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 3.51 with SP 5 or greater, or Windows NT 4 (no specific SP is required, though SP 2 is recommended) Clock Dependencies: System clock Last Updated: 17 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 customersÆ 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. Prerequisite: Download the Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR2) patch from 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.   Special Note for East Asian versions of Excel: East Asian versions of Excel 97 SR-2 includes a new method for parsing Gregorian dates. The new behavior is optimized to be an easy way to deal with 21st century dates. In addition, East Asian versions of Excel 97 SR-2 also contain the old method for parsing Gregorian dates. The default setting for Chinese Traditional Excel 97 SR-2 is the old method for parsing Gregorian dates. To switch between the two date parsing behaviors, look on the SR-2 CD under \Valupack\XLParse for two files: "Newparse.reg" and "Oldparse.reg". Double clicking the file sets a registry key so that the next time that Excel starts up, it is in the desired date parsing mode. In this compliance document, references tagged with (OLD DATE PARSING MODE ONLY) applies both to Excel 97 SR-2 in the old parsing mode, and also to Excel 97 SR-1 and earlier versions of Excel 97. References not tagged with (OLD DATE PARSING MODE ONLY) can be assumed to apply to the new date parsing mode in SR-2. How the product handles dates: Storage. Microsoft Excel stores dates as numeric values, with day #1 being 1900/1/1. Excel 97 recognizes 01-JAN-1900 through 31-DEC-9999 as valid dates. Visual Basic/Visual Basic for Applications uses the same serial date system, with the exception of 1-JAN-1900 through 28-FEB-1900, where the values are different by 1, as a result of backward-compatibility issues with Lotus 1-2-3, which treats 1900 as a leap year. Previous versions of Excel recognize 01-JAN-1900 through 31-DEC-2078 as valid dates. Formatting. When Microsoft Excel formats a date, it uses one of several default formats. The most common is the system short date. If the system short date is a YY (2-digit year) format, then even when the user types a YYYY (4-digit year format) date, it will by default display in a YYYY format. The date format is customizable. For customers requiring the highest level of predictability concerning their date data, it is recommend they change the system short date to a YYYY format. Parsing on date entry. If a user enters a date in a "yy-m-d" format, less than 30 is 20XX, and equal to or greater than 30 is 19XX. So, for instance, "25-1-1" used to parse to 01-JAN-1925, but with SR 2 now parses to 01-JAN-2025. To avoid ambiguity, display dates in a YYYY format so the century is clearly shown. (OLD DATE PARSING MODE ONLY). If a user enters a date in a "yy/mm/dd" format, it will be interpreted as a R.O.C. era date. For instance, "1/2/3" will parse to 03 FEB 1912. To avoid ambiguity, enter dates in a YYYY/MM/DD format so the date can be clearly understood. (OLD DATE PARSING MODE ONLY). On a default Chinese Traditional system, if a user enters a 21st century date in a "mm/dd/yy" format, some cases will be interpreted as a "yy/mm/dd" format. To avoid ambiguity, enter dates in a YYYY/MM/DD format so the date can be clearly understood. String date parsing during calculations. If a formula takes a string date as an argument, the string date is currently parsed using the same code as the date entry shown above. The Date Migration Wizard, an Excel add-in, will be available shortly to aid the user in identifying and correcting these situations.   Two-digit shortcut handling: See discussion above. Conversion of 2-digit shortcut dates assumes a date window of 1930 through 2029. Common date usage errors: If a date is pasted from one application to another using only the last two digits of the year, Microsoft Excel might parse the date differently than the originating application calculated it. Example: In a non-Excel application, the user has the date January 1, 1915. The user copies the date, but the system settings are "M/d/yy", and the text that is copied is "1/1/15". When pasted "1/1/15" into Microsoft Excel, it will parse the date to January 1, 1926 (R.O.C. era 15, January 1). Such change can also occur when one application is using a "M/d/yy" format while another application is using a "d/M/yy" format. This also applies to importing dates from text files. The DATE() function is not designed to take 2-digit year shortcuts, since it receives numeric parameters. The DATE() function calculates a number less than 1900 as an offset from 1900. So, if a formula such as =DATE(15,1,1) were entered, the resulting date would be January 1, 1915, not 2015. Increasing the numeric parameters can yield 20xx dates. Recording date entry in a macro records the year according to the system short date format, which results in parsing a 2-digit year in playback. (See Knowledge Base article Q180159 for more information.) Using a format such as "Dec 98" will not be interpreted at the year 2001. This is because 98 is too large to be the day of month so Microsoft Excel assumes it is a year. However, Microsoft Excel assumes "Dec 01" refers to December 1 of the current year as 01 is small enough to be interpreted as a day of the month. Excel assumes the user has entered a valid date and works to match it to the most likely valid date (See Knowledge Base article Q180952 for more information.) Due to the ambiguous nature of text dates, in general they will have some potential for error. Use serial dates whenever possible and take great care when transferring text dates. Change the default system short date format to include a 4-digit year. Get in the habit of using 4-digit year formats for dates in Microsoft Excel. Such a practice will make the date visible if a user mistakenly enters a date in the wrong century. When dates must be transferred between applications, ideally they should be transferred as serial dates. They should not be transferred as an ambiguous text format that doesnÆt specify the century and causes confusion between month and day-of-month. For example, the text "25/2/1" could be interpreted as Feb. 1, 1925, Jan. 2, 1925, Feb. 1, 2025, , Jan. 2, 2025 or Feb. 1, 1936 (R.O.C. era 25, Feb. 1). Defined names store references only as text strings. Since they do not store dates as serial values, they are vulnerable to century issues when a two-digit format is used. Using defined names in this way is also problematic because users who use a date format with an order other than M-d-y will experience miscalculations. Recommended usage is to define the name referring to a cell containing a serial date, which will avoid both of the above-mentioned potential problems. Microsoft has created an add-in tool to help users identify Year 2000 issues in solutions created in Microsoft Excel97: The East Asian Date Migration Wizard is designed to help users find instances where date-related arguments are referencing text dates. The East Asian Date Migration Wizard is available on the Microsoft web site. Testing guidelines and recommendations: In general, avoid testing in a production environment or with non-duplicated production files because side effects with other products cannot be predicted. Interoperability testing with other Microsoft Office products can be conducted safely. The following areas should be examined to verify whether dates are being properly used. The table below can be used to guide testing of Microsoft Excel within your organization. Sub-system Component File Various File Formats Avoid storing 2-digit dates in text file formats such as TXT, DIF, CSV, and PRN. The default column width with default fonts may truncate characters with date formats that have 8 digits and two separators. To resolve, increase the column width, or change the font to a fixed-width typeface such as Courier New. Data Import from: text, Databases, External data sources Sort Data imported from databases and other external sources is often imported as text. With the old date parsing mode, the behavior is the same as in previous versions. With the new date parsing mode, importing 2-digit dates will be parsed with the 2029 cutoff. This is different from previous versions of Excel so use 4-digit dates to prevent confusion. Basic Use Functions Date Entry Natural Language Functions Functions referring to text dates will parse according to the 2029/1930 cutoff rule. With the old date parsing mode, date entry is the same as previous versions. With the new date parsing mode, date entry will parse according to the 2029/1930 cutoff rule. Visual Data Charts Since chart labels are normally used for display, and not for calculation, this shouldn't pose much of an issue. Visual Basic/ Visual Basic for Applications Transfer between Visual Basic/Visual Basic for Applications and cells Internally, Visual Basic for Applications treats dates as serial values, exactly like Excel. However, since VBA uses the "M/d/yy" format, users should avoid transferring the date text through VBA, since it could parse to the wrong century. This will also help avoid issues with international users who have a system short date format with an order other than M-d-y. Additional Testing Instructions Microsoft understands that for various reasons customers may be required to conduct their own year 2000 certification testing. Microsoft provides the tests below to aid customers in conducting their own year 2000 certification of Microsoft Excel. Users who work with dates in Microsoft Excel will benefit from changing the system short date format to one that uses a 4-digit year, (i.e. "yyyy/mm/dd"). This change will allow the user to clearly see the century of a date. Conducting the below tests is only worthwhile if 4-digit years are used. If you decide not to set your system short date format to include a 4-digit year, you can format each cell individually by selecting Format/Cells/Number/Custom, and entering a 4-digit year format. To change the system short date format, press the Start button, then select Settings, Control Panel, Regional Settings, select the Date page, then change the Short Date Style to a format that includes a 4-digit year by replacing the "yy" portion with "yyyy". Verify that Microsoft Excel transitions smoothly into the year 2000: Warning! Before conducting this test, make sure there is no software containing a license that expires by the year 2000. This is especially common with beta copies of software programs. If a program determines that its license has expired it is possible the program will no longer boot, even after resetting the system clock. Changing a system clock on a network can affect other computers connected to the network, so it is highly recommended that the computer be isolated from other systems before changing the system clock to conduct the following test. Set the system clock to 11:59 p.m. December 31, 1999. Start Excel. In cell A1 (cell R1C1 if in R1C1 mode), enter =NOW(). After one minute, press {F9} to recalculate the formula entered in A1. Note that the time and date shown will be in the year 2000, and nothing unusual has happened to Microsoft Excel. Remember to reset the system clock to the correct time and date after conducting this test. Verify that Microsoft Excel recognizes the year 2000 as a leap year: Start Excel. In cell A1 (cell R1C1 if in R1C1 mode), enter "=DATE(2000,2,28)+1". Note that the resulting date is February 29, indicating that Excel correctly recognizes that 2000 is a leap year. Note: The year 1900 is not a leap year. However, while testing you may notice Microsoft Excel treats 1900 as a leap year. This algorithm was adopted to maintain compatibility with dates in Lotus 1-2-3, and is by design. The calculation for leap years used by the Gregorian calendar is as follows. If a year is evenly divisible by four, it is a leap year, unless the year is evenly divisible by 100. If a year is evenly divisible by 100, it is not a leap year, unless it is also evenly divisible by 400. (See KB article Q181370 for more information.) Excel 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 Excel 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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