We just bought a new Dell Pentium III with Windows 98 installed and I just read on Gary North's site a post about Windows 98 Y2K upgrades. Our new computer was purchased less than a month ago and we've tested the hardware for Y2K compliance and installed a Detect and Correct program from Parsons Technology, but this has nothing to do with Windows compliance.

Can any of you kind people tell me more about this? We also have a Pentium 120 running Windows 95 and an older 486 with Windows 95, both of which have been hardware-corrected with Detect and Correct, but what about Windows, not to mention the Lotus (AmiPro) wordprocessing software. What should we do? Thank you!

-- dixie rhodes (dixieart@aol.com), October 02, 1999

Answers

Microsoft has a patch for windows 98 out. You can download it from their y2k site. There are also patches available for Windows 95.

NT users have another problem entirely. Service Pack 5 for NT is NOT y2k compliant. It was supposed to be fixed but it was reported a week ago that some system calls between the BIOS and the OS were not supported. Gotta love that.

It should be addressed with Service Pack 6 that is coming out shortly. Gotta love your Windows 2000 Professional Build 2181 RC2... At least on my laptop that is...

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), October 02, 1999.

dixie,

Since you just bought it you are probably running the second version of Windows 98 which has all of the fixes from the first version taken care of. It's probably as compliant as Microsoft knows how to get it at this point, but after 2000 of course we'll find out if they have new patches for it.

-- @ (@@@.@), October 02, 1999.

I actually received a postcard about this from Microsoft this week. The address for updates is: www.microsoft.com/y2k or you can request a Microsoft Year 2000 Resource CD by phoning 1-888-MSFT-Y2K. Hope this helps.

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), October 02, 1999.

Is there any way to tell if I'm running Windows 98 One or Windows 98 Two on the new computer? If I don't need to download the fix, I sure don't want to do it.

I suppose I really do need to get the W95 fix, if one is available?

-- dixie rhodes (dixieart@aol.com), October 02, 1999.

dixie,

Call Dell or whoever you bought it from. They'll need to know the exact order number but if you bought ti that recently it would almost have to have version 2 on it. They would be ripping you off if they sold you one with the older version and expected you to upgrade it yourself. In that case, I would get VERY pissed and start hollering at them!

-- @ (@@@.@), October 02, 1999.

I took Scary Gary's advice and ordered the MSFT CD Rom. Took about two weeks to receive the august 99 version, then it took 2 days to receive another august 99 version, then 1 day to receive another and another and another. Call me crazy but I smell panic at MSFT.

-- The Answer My Friend (IsBlowing@The.Wind), October 02, 1999.

I called for my Y2K disk a month ago, no show.

I wonder what gives?

-- Helium (Heliumavid@yahoo.com), October 02, 1999.

Helium,

I think "what gives" is that Billy Boy is hoping to stall off until Windows 2000 comes out and get a lot of people to make the switch. If people get annoyed enough with waiting for and trying to install all these patches, and then they say "look Win2000 is totally compliant, go ahead and upgrade, you'll be glad you did" that strategy will probably serve them quite well. That's why Billy Boy is sitting on $80 Billion and you're sitting there waiting for a fix. Pretty rude, but that's the way he does it!

-- @ (@@@.@), October 02, 1999.

Remember, even if the hardware and OS are 100% compliant,

CHECK YOUR APPLICATIONS!

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), October 02, 1999.

Dixie Rhodes,

Look at:

http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/wordpro

as to the Lotus status. This page will also reference to the IBM page where you will find all Lotus products listed along with any ysk fixes/patches/verbage etc. Check it out.

http://www.willitwork.com/ will link to several companies and their status and upgrade fixes should you care enough to navigate the pages.

Also, didn't Windows 98 ship with IE 5.0? It is supposed to have an automatic update feature in it whereby you can get the latest and greatest updates from Microsoft.

Right click on "My Computer" on your desktop and then open "Properties". Open "General" in this new menu. This will show you which version of Windows you have.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product/product.asp would then let you find the status of your version should you not trust the IE 5.0 update thingy.

Same same for Windows 95 too.

This is fun isn't it?

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (buffgun@hotmail.com), October 02, 1999.

Now you know why I've installed Linux.

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.net), October 02, 1999.

de,

What the h*ll is Linux? I thought that was a character in the Peanuts comic strip.

What does it do, and does it do it any better?

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (buffgun@hotmail.com), October 02, 1999.

S.O.B.,

Check salonmagazine.com, and do an archive search on Linux. Several nice, long discursive articles on why it's become the system of choice for many and who its creators are.

Then you could go to wired.com and do the same thing for more technical articles.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 02, 1999.

PH,

Thank you for the information.

First blush says NO way.

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (buffgun@hotmail.com), October 02, 1999.

Gary North addresses your question directly in one of his current posts:

http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/6358

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 02, 1999.

The above was addressed to Dixie.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 02, 1999.

Dixie,

There's a real simple way of doing this. Look at your link bar. There should be a link that says "Windows update" on the link bar. Connect to the net and click the link. It will take you to the MS Windows Critical Update page. It will automatically detect what upgrades have already been installed and tell you which ones you still need. There have been many, many patches to other MS products that are part of Windows, including I.E. and Outlook. As was already mentioned, be sure to check the websites of ALL your application software providers for updates to their own products!

-- Don Wegner (donfmwyo@earthlink.net), October 02, 1999.

dixie, you already know about the patches on the microsoft site. in addition, you should sign up for their FREE quarterly CD so that you can get additional updates sent to you. be aware that downloading any updates from microsoft is a real pain and hard to complete. i would recommend starting it late at night just before going to bed.

for your hardware, esp the 486, you can purchase a package by Intelliquis called IntelliFix2000 (Pro version) from Staples cheap, and it will fix your hardware. it will also fix all levels of your software as well, and it meets the highest British standards for y2k fixes, which is the defacto international standard. the u.s. has no standards.

-- jocelyne slough (jonslough@tln.net), October 04, 1999.