Microsoft Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure & Resource Center

Product Summary

Product: Excel 5.0 Version: Category: Compliant# Operating System: 16-Bit Win Language: Arabic Release Date: N/A Operational Range: 01 Jan 1900 - 01 Dec 2078 Prerequisites: None Product Dependencies: Arabic Windows 3.x, Arabic Windows 95/98 in both enabled and localized versions, Arabic Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4 Enabled Clock Dependencies: System clock Last Updated: 14 Jan 1999

Product Details

Special Note for Arabic version of Excel: Arabic Excel 5 supports Hijri calendar. Arabic Excel 5 has the ability to parse a date in Hijri date format. Day one of Hijri (01/01/01) is equivalent to July 16, 622 AD. In most countries in the Middle East region, the popular date format is dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy. Arabic Excel 5 will try to format the date entered in a cell based on the Calendar chosen from the Tools/Options dialog, Arabic tab. Also Excel 5 will follow the Short Date format set from the Control Panel (ex: MM/dd/yy) Arabic users can set the calendar to System, Gregorian or Hijri. When the calendar is set to System, it follows the Calendar in the Control Panel. In that case when the user types a date such as 12/30/98, and the short date format is MM/dd/yy then Excel parses the date in Gregorian unless the format of the date is proceeded by B2. When the calendar in Tools/Optionsà is set to Hijri, the dates will be parsed to Hijri without the B2 prefix, and likewise when set to Gregorian, dates will be parsed as Gregorian without the B1 prefix. Arabic Excel 5 also allows the user to choose what month name to use in case of Arabic. This option is selected from Tools/Options as well. The options are System, Arabic, English, Transliterated English, and Transliterated French. If the case of System, Excel 5 will apply the above format to a date based on what country is selected in the Regional Settings and since these formats are Gregorian, there is no need for the B2 prefix. Arabic Excel 5 also allows the user to turn on/off the Advanced Hijri date format independent of the Regional Settings in the Control Panel. Arabic Excel 5 also has the ability to format a Gregorian date into a Hijri date by adding the prefix "B2" to the beginning of the format type, e.g. applying the format B2mm/dd/yy to the Gregorian date 12/31/98 in Arabic Excel results in the Hijri date 09/13/19, where 19 is the YY representation for year 1419. The "B2" string is applied in the Format Cells dialog, Number tab, Date category, or by using the NumberFormat property of the Range object using Visual Basic. To convert Hijri date into Gregorian, the "B2" prefix is omitted or the calendar option is changed to Gregorian in "Tools/Optionsà" To convert a date from Gregorian to Hijri, the prefix "B2" is applied or the calendar option is changed to Hijri in Tools/Optionsà Arabic Excel 5 does not parse a year into YYYY (4-digit year) even if the short date format in Control Panel was set to YYYY. Excel will start parsing a 4-digit year only when the user adds that format from Format Cells dialog. How the product handles dates: Storage. Microsoft Excel stores dates as numeric values, with day #1 being 1900/1/1. Excel 5 recognizes 01-JAN-1900 through 31-DEC-2078 as valid dates. Excel 5 adds 1900 or 2000 (based on 1920 cutoff) to 2-digit years, when a cell is formatted with the B2 prefix. This means that 2-digit years from 20-99 will refer to 1920-1999, while 2-digit years ranging from 00-19 refer to 2000-2019. If the calendar in Tools/Options is Hijri, Arabic Excel 5 adds the Hijri year 1400 to /2-digit years. Parsing on date entry. If a user enters a date in a "yy-m-d" format, less than 20 is 20XX, and equal to or greater than 20 is 19XX. Gregorian 12/31/2019 is equivalent to Hijri 05/05/1441, and Gregorian 01/01/1920 is equivalent to Hijri 04/10/1338. So from a Hijri date point of view, Arabic Excel 5 does not obey the "< 20 = 20XX" rule. This design is expected, as the year 2000 in Hijri does not occur for another 6 centuries. 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, you have 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 the text "1-1-15". When the user pastes "1-1-15" into Microsoft Excel, it will parse the date to January 1, 2015. Such an error 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. (See Knowledge Base articles Q180159 for more information.) 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 you were to enter a formula such as =DATE(15,1,1), the resulting date would be January 1, 1915, not 2015. The user cannot pass the DATE()function Hijri year, month and day. Even if the cell is formatted with B2 prefix, Arabic Excel 5 will calculate the Gregorian date based on the parameters passed to it and then will convert the date to Hijri. For example if the user formats a cell as B2mm/dd/yyyy and then types in it "=DATE(15,1,1)", the user will get 02/15/1333. Arabic Excel 5 looks at the parameters passed to DATE() and considers that as 01/01/1915 and then it converts to Hijri. Recording date entry in a macro records the year in a YY (2-digit year) format, which can cause problems if the two-digit year is not meant to follow the 1920-2019 date window that is mentioned above. To avoid confusion or miscalculations Arabic Excel 5 users should maintain a single type of date representation on the same sheet. If users decide to use Hijri, then they should use only Hijri. Testing guidelines and recommendations: In general, avoid testing in a production environment or with non-duplicated production files because side effects with other products are difficult to predict. Interoperability testing with other Microsoft Office products can be conducted safely. Testing 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, Date category, 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 Arabic Excel 5 transitions smoothly into the year 2000 when the Locale in Regional Settings is one of the Arabic countries: Warning! Before conducting this test, make sure you do not have 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 you isolate the computer from other systems before changing the system clock to conduct the following test. Verify Arabic Excel 5 bumps the date that comes with the day 30 to the 1st day of the following month. With Short Date in the control panel set to MM/dd/yyyy and with the cell formatted to B2mm/dd/yyyy or with Hijri calendar on from Tools/Optionsà type in a cell "12/30/1419" and press Enter. Make sure that Excel bumps the date to 01/01/1420. Set the system clock to 11:59 p.m. December 31, 1999 and then format the cell into B2dd/mm/yyyy. Start Arabic Excel 5. In cell A1 (cell R1C1 if in R1C1 mode), enter =NOW(). After one minute, press {F9} to recalculate the formula you entered in A1. The resulting date shown should be 9/25/1420 Hijri, and nothing unusual has happened to Microsoft Excel. Remember to reset your 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". The resulting date should be February 29, indicating that Excel correctly recognizes that 2000 is a leap year.

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