This is an edited version of an e-mail that was sent to the entire company. We are a $20 million medium sized high tech company.

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In order to take [company name deleted] into the New Year with the safety and security of Y2K readiness. During the next few weeks, MIS will be taking a plan of action to test all servers and systems for Y2K compliance.

YOUR DESKTOP/LAPTOP

Y2K testing is a shared responsibility and everybody needs to ensure that their desktop/laptop will function correctly in the New Year. Since [company name deleted] has people in places that are unreachable by us directly, we ask that you run the utility that I have attached (needs a Windows 95 PC to create the diskette, but will run on NT once created).

This utility will tell you if your computer hardware is Y2K compliant and is available for download from http://www.symantec.com by entering your email address. Also, this file is available on [directory deleted] if you computer fails this test or you are unable to create a floppy disk, please email me and we will send one to you.

IBM Thinkpad models 390, 600, 770 are compliant. Dell model x400 and above are compliant.

Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT (and some of the applications installed) on your desktop/laptop have recommended updates, 85%-95% will be minor issues or updates. Microsoft has been generous enough to provide a utility that will test your systems hardware & software and provide you with a report on recommended updates. Please install this utility from [directory deleted] and email me the results and I will be able to address any of the problems identified by this software. For our international audience, this software is available in many languages (too many to list), please try to download the language version of your choice at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/pca/pca.htm#features or E-Mail me and I will send it to you.

One further note, Microsoft just release a 6th Service Pack that is supposed to address Y2K issues (that were missed in Service Pack 5), please DO NOT install this Service Pack until we have tested it with our current hardware and software configuration.

SERVERS

There will be scheduled downtimes for all servers during the next few weeks as posted, we thank you for your patience in advance. The results of the tests will be posted on the MIS web page.

-------------------- NOTE: 4 weeks to go an my company is just now addressing this issue. Does not leave much time to fix any problems that arise....

-- hidden man (hidden@man.nowhere.org), November 29, 1999

Answers

Good luck to your MIS guy.

A few weeks ago, I went to Microsoft's Y2K site to check out my own computers.

First of all, it says things like "Windows 95 is compliant" in the introductory section. This would lead one to believe that if they had Windows 95 installed on their machine, then no further action would be needed.

It wasn't until I decided to run the Product Analyzer (after reading an informative thread on this forum), that I discovered that 11 out of 14 Microsoft applications on my machine were "Compliant (prerequisite required).

Long story short: It's a total pain to install the patches - the instructions are very confusing and will be different for every machine. Furthermore, if the system later crashes, you have to reinstall the original software and then all of the patches again (and in the proper order). The only really practical solution (for me anyway) is to purchase Windows 98 and Office 2000. I'm procrastinating because I don't want to spend the money and I also know what a hassle it's going to be to install that stuff, but I gues I ought to bite the bullet and do it.

It's not too bad for me since I only have a couple of laptops, but it looks like your MIS guy is going to be putting in a lot of overtime next month.

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), November 30, 1999.