Are You Ready? Is Microsoft Ready?

In 4 short months, we'll all be watching, fingers crossed, hoping we caught the worst of our Y2K-compliance problems. If you've been busily updating systems this year, you'll find this summary of Y2K readiness for Windows NT and related products reassuring. If you haven't paid attention to Y2K matters for several months, you'll find out which of the most commonly used products need updates.

You can install NT with a variety of devices and services, and the Y2k updates you need are based on your configuration. To convey the details clearly, I think it's best to discuss Y2K concerns starting with the most recent product versions and working back to the older versions. I cover Service Pack 5 (SP5) first, then SP4, SP3, review Windows NT 3.51, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), Internet Explorer, and finally, Outlook. Remember that all Y2K update information applies equally to NT Server and NT Workstation.

I also review the Year 2000 Product Analyzer, which you can download at Microsoft's Y2K Resource Center (http://www.microsoft.com/ Year2000. This utility compares installed versions of many products with the Y2K-compliant versions. In theory, this tool should help diagnose the updates required, based on the versions of installed software. Sadly, when I ran it on my BDC, it failed to identify NT Server at all, and I have the screen shots to prove it.

The sidebar, "Checking Service Pack and DLL Versions," tells you how to identify the version of a DLL, a technique you need to determine whether you have to update only one or two components in a product. This sidebar also provides instructions for identifying the current service pack level and verifying the installed version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE).

Microsoft's Compliance Ratings
I read Microsoft's compliance definitions six or eight times and was left scratching my head in bewilderment. After doing all the research for this article, I think I've deciphered the definitions. Compliant means the product stands on its own. Compliant * means you must take corrective action, which typically involves installing a service pack. Compliant # means that after you apply the required updates, the product still has one or more cosmetic or nonintrusive date problems that should not interfere with normal operation (Microsoft carefully documents the problems for each product). Last, Compliant + means you need an update, but the update is not yet available. I hope my definitions help you dig your way through this Pandora's box of service packs, updates, hotfixes, and bug fixes. Good luck!

Dates, Dates, and More Dates
The date ranges in Y2K-compliant products are amazing. When you look hard at how software vendors implement dates across a broad spectrum of products, you wonder how the products work at all, let alone work with each other. For example, according to the documentation at Microsoft's Year 2000 Resource Center (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/), NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 support a date range of January 1, 1996, to December 31, 2036. It appears we get to repeat this process again in 2035. Although it doesn't have the same snappy appeal as Y2K, Year 2036 compliance is just 3 decades away.

I'm not sure I believe the published NT-supported date range, because I have files on my system that date back to 1993, and the supported date range post-dates these files. To complicate matters, Outlook 98 manages dates between April 1, 1601, and August 31, 4500. Think of the conversion that must occur if, on August 1, 2000, I mail a file I created in 1993 to a friend. The deeper you dig, the worse the situation gets. I believe each individual product will be fine when the calendar rolls over to three zeros, but it seems prudent to worry about how the products will communicate dates to each other. Testing cross-product date conversion has to be the job from hell.

NT 4.0 SP4/SP5 BIOS2 Hotfix
As of August 6, there is one hotfix—the BIOS2-fix—you need to apply. This hotfix correctly refreshes the realtime clock when the selected time zone does not observe Daylight Saving Time. The hotfix also updates the multiprocessor kernel, if one exists. There are two BIOS2-fix updates, one for SP4 and one for SP5, so be sure you download the correct version for your installed service pack. You can find the instructions for checking your installed hotfix version (there are three—the original, BIOS, and BIOS2) listed by filename and size in the file Q216913.txt, which is located in the hotfix download directory. See Table 1 for the download URL.

NT 4.0 SP5 Status
NT 4.0 SP5 is a bundled version of bug fixes, hotfixes, and security updates for SP4. As far as I know, SP5 doesn't introduce any essential OS changes. Most of these bug fixes and hotfixes have been available for at least 6 months and have been thoroughly tested.

According to information on the Microsoft Support Online Web site at the beginning of August, NT and NT Server, Enterprise Edition with SP5 are Y2K compliant and require no corrective action. NT Terminal Server Edition SP4, which is the most current release of Terminal Server, is also Y2K compliant. If you're already running these versions, congratulations. Be sure you read the IE and MDAC sections later in this article to ensure you've covered all the known Y2K bases.

If you haven't upgraded your systems to SP5, you'll be glad to know that feedback on SP5 has been universally positive. So unless you have a compelling reason not to proceed, I strongly encourage you to update your servers to SP5 before October. SP5 is much easier to install than a collection of 20 hotfixes and even more bug fixes for SP4. I expect to see some last-minute Y2K updates, even for SP5. If you're ready in October, you can easily install a few late-breaking bug fixes. You can download service packs and hotfixes for NT Server, Terminal Server, and BackOffice products from http://technet.microsoft.com/ reg/support/sp.htm.

Upgrading to SP5
Microsoft strongly recommends that you update IE 4.01 to SP2 or newer (e.g., IE 5.0) before you apply SP5. You also must install MDAC 2.1 SP1 or newer to take care of object-related date problems before installing SP5.

SP4 changes several key OS features including memory management, service order dependencies, WINS, DHCP, and DNS. The service pack adds new Event Log records and support for mixed NTFS 4.0 and 5.0 environments. Some of these enhancements affect how NT installs and starts drivers and services. The net result is that SP3 drivers might not run with SP5. Compaq Alpha systems and some RAID controllers need firmware updates to run SP4 or SP5. So, before you upgrade, check with vendors for SP4- and SP5-compatible drivers and update your firmware as well. This approach will give you a much smoother ride.

If you're moving from SP4 to SP5, you can apply SP5 to domain controllers in any order. However, if you're upgrading from SP3, you must use the following procedure when you install SP5 on multiple servers:

1. Update the BDC to SP5.
2. Promote the BDC to PDC using Server Manager on the BDC.
3. Update the original PDC (now the BDC) to SP5.
4. Synchronize the BDC with the PDC.
5. Promote the BDC to the PDC.

SP4 encrypts the SAM and the Local Security Authority (LSA) databases that contain user, group, and service accounts, security policies and other essential security data. Because service packs are cumulative, the same is true for SP5. Because SP4 encrypts the SAM and the LSA databases, security databases on an SP3 server are incompatible with the SAM and LSA files on an SP4 or SP5 system. When you mix domain controllers running SP3 and SP4 or SP5, you can only promote or demote a domain controller from Server Manager on a system running the newer release. If you follow the upgrade procedure identified above, you should have a successful upgrade from SP3 to SP5. Intel and other companies have successfully tested this procedure.

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