Will my whole computer (which has hardware compliant and clocks compliant) will be affected by one part of a software program which is not compliant but which I never use. Like an old Word Perfect Program which, among other things, does spreadsheets which I don't use. Will that corrupt the whole computer come Y2K?

-- Jen White (jenwhite@compuserve.com), October 02, 1998

Answers

My techie opinion is a qualified No. Generally, non-compliant hardware and operating systems can obviously affect applications, but the converse usually does not apply, especially for a reputable one like WP. (Maybe someone knows of an exception?...)

-- Joe (shar@pei.com), October 02, 1998.

A single PC (DOS based) application program, like your Word(im)Perfect program, should not affect any other operations or functions.

Especially, if like a word processor, you aren't using it.

Even if one program, like a spreadsheet, was affected (maybe because it uses a bad "date1-date2" equation someplace), a different spreadsheet, running on the same computer, isn't expected to be affected by the first spreadsheet.

If you have two "bad" spreadsheets, though, [Example: one for 1996 and a copy for 1997] you would have to correct both spreadsheet copies.

Fixing the first [1996.wk1] would not mean the second [1997.wk1] would work.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 02, 1998.