MS Windows 95 Year 2000 Update

Article
02/20/2014

Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.

In an ongoing effort to address possible issues associated with the Year 2000, Microsoft has identified several minor Year 2000 issues within Windows 95. This update addresses these known issues which are associated with generating dates on your computer on or after January 1, 2000. The known issues cover leap year calculations in particular circumstances, the handling of some date/time settings, and incorrect logging of on-line calling. For detailed information on the known issues covered by this Windows 95 Year 2000 Update, please refer to the readme text provided below.

It is important that all of the download and installation instructions be followed. Complete step-by-step instructions can be found below.

Localized versions of the Windows 95 year 2000 software update will be made available Late Spring 1999. Updated Product Guide documents for each localized version of Windows 95 with information on how to obtain those software updates will be posted when available.

Before You Install the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update

Close all running applications before installing the Year 2000 Update.

Also, because the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update updates some system files, it is recommended that you disable any anti-virus software that is running. If you chose not to disable this software please accept the changes made to the Command.com file if prompted by your anti-virus software during installation of the update or after restarting your machine.

Note: This download is not intended for use on computers running Microsoft Windows 98.

System Requirements

Microsoft Windows 95
The Year 2000 Update will require approximately 10MB of free space on your hard drive.
The installation of Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 is necessary for some systems as part of this year 2000 update and will require approximately 72MB of free space for a Standard installation*****.

Note: amount of disk space required includes the setup files and the amount of space necessary to run installation.

How to Download and Install

Click here to download w95y2k.exe to your computer

Follow the instructions on your screen.

After the Installation of the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update

Please make a new Emergency Startup Disk that will reflect the changes made.

Insert original startup disk in Drive A
Click on Start / Programs / MS-DOS Prompt
Type 'Sys a:' without the quotes (you will receive a message stating system transferred when process is complete).

If you do not have a startup disk, do the following:

Insert blank floppy into Drive A.
Click on Start / Settings / Control Panel.
Double-click Add/Remove Programs
Click on the Startup Disk tab
Click Create Disk…

How to Uninstall

Uninstall is not available for this component.

README File for Windows 95 Year 2000 Update

This document provides complementary information to supplement the Microsoft Windows 95 documentation. The Windows 95 Year 2000 Update provides Windows 95 updates to resolve known year 2000 issues with the Windows 95 operating systems. Such information is generally available to all Microsoft customers for the sole purpose of assisting the planning for the transition to the year 2000. This document contains the information currently available concerning the date-handling behavior of Microsoft's products and is subject to change, at any time, without notice. We therefore recommend that you continue to check the information on the Microsoft Year 2000 Web site regularly for any such changes. NOTE: For the best readability, maximize the Notepad window. To print this file, open it in Notepad or another word processing program, and then click Print on the File menu.

Installation Notes

**System Requirements—**You need 10 MB free disk space to install the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update. The Installation of Internet Explorer Service pack 2 (not necessary for all systems), if selected, will require approximately 80 MB free disk space. B.
**This Year 2000 Update is for Windows 95 only—**This Update is not intended for use on and will not install on computers running Windows 98, Windows NT, or Windows 2000. For international versions of Windows 95, download and install the appropriate language version for your location.
**Before You Install the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update—**Because the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update updates your system files and requires you to restart your computer during installation, you should save and close all open documents and close all programs before installing the Update.
**Anti-virus software and Installing the Year 2000 Update—**Because the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update updates some system files it is recommended that you disable any anti-virus software that is running. If you chose not to disable this software please accept the changes made to the Command.com file when prompted by the anti-virus software during installation of the Update or after restarting your machine. II.

Installation Instructions

**Downloading and Extracting the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update—**If you download the update from the Web site, be sure to read the release notes completely before you extract and install the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update. After you download the Update, a compressed executable file named W95y2k.exe appears on your hard drive. This executable file contains the files you need to update your Windows 95 system for the year 2000. To extract the file and install the year 2000 updates:
1. Locate the W95y2k.exe file on your hard drive with Windows Explorer
2. Double click the file.
3. Follow the instructions that appear on your screen.
**Advanced Installation Options—**There are several installation options available to advanced users when installing the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update. You can view these options at any time by clicking Start, clicking Run, typing W95y2k.exe /? and then clicking OK. To use the optional installation parameters below, type W95y2k.exe <option>

/Q - Quiet mode (skips all user prompts) - Useful for silent installations in batch setups.

/T: - Specifies a temporary working folder.

/C - Extract files only to the folder when used also with /T - Allows an administrator to download files into a specified location.

/C: - Override install command defined by author (see below)
**Additional Installation Options for Administrators—**System Administrators or Advanced users may want to simplify the process of rolling out this Year 2000 Update by utilizing the following options. The syntax for the following options is:

W95y2k.exe /C:"y2ksetup " [Note: you must include the quotes as indicated.]

/ii - Ignore Internet Explorer version, and only install core year 2000 files

/ai - Always launch Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 setup, and run silently

/nr - Never reboot, without prompting.

/ar - Always reboot, without prompting.

**Create a new Windows 95 Startup Disk—**After the installation of the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update you should create a new Emergency Startup Disk that will reflect the changes made.
1. Insert original startup disk in Drive A
2. Click on Start / Programs / MS-DOS Prompt
3. Type "Sys a:" without the quotes (you will receive a message stating system transferred when process is complete).
If you do not have a startup disk, do the following:
1. Insert blank floppy into Drive A.
2. Click on Start / Settings / Control Panel.
3. Double-click Add/Remove Programs
4. Click on the Startup Disk tab
5. Click Create Disk…

Release Notes

**If You Reinstall Windows 95—**If you have to reinstall the Windows 95 operating system, you will lose the benefits of the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update installation. Any time you have to reinstall Windows 95, run the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update installation again.
**Windows 95 Startup Disk—**Follow the instructions above in section II to create a new Startup Disk (also called Emergency Boot Disk) after installing the Year 2000 Update. If you do not update your Startup Disk, using it to replace the boot files on your system (using the SYS command) will install a version of the system file Command.com which has not been updated for year 2000. You can run the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update again to install the correct version of Command.com on your system.
**Changes to Network Settings—**This update installs a new year 2000-ready version of the file vdhcp.386. This network system file will be overwritten by an older version from your Windows 95 CD or disks if you make changes to your networking settings. For instance, if you install a new network adaptor, setup an online service, or make changes in Control Panel\Network, your original version of vdhcp.386 will be copied to your system. If this occurs, run the Windows 95 Year 2000 Update again to install the correct version of vdhcp.386.

What Are the Year 2000 Issues in Windows 95?

The issues listed below are resolved by installing this Update.

**Find "File or Folders" Dialog (shell32.dll)—**The Date tab in Find "File or Folders" dialog displays the year in YY format. This format results in incorrect displays for years greater than 2000. For example, entering 03/20/2003 will incorrectly display 03/20/C3. However this does not effect the search. When searching for files changed within a certain date range, enter a 2-digit or 4-digit date and the search will be performed based on the dates entered. This file will be updated only if you are running Windows 95 version 950 or 950a. This issue does not exist in later Windows 95 versions.
**Windows File Manager (winfile.exe)—**Windows File Manager does not display or sort dates beyond the year 2000 correctly. When using Windows File Manager to view the contents of folders, and you have selected to view "all file details", the dates of files created in the year 2000 and beyond may appear as follows:

January 1st, 2000 would appear as 1/1/;1

February 3rd, 2023 would appear as 2/3/3

March 5th, 2036 would appear as 3/5/=6
**Command Interpreter (command.com)—**The DATE command (internal to COMMAND.COM) does not correctly handle 2-digit dates from 00-79. Entering 2-digit dates within this range returns the error "Invalid Date".
**Date/Time Picker (comctl32.dll)—**Previously, when you set your Regional Settings in the Control Panel to handle years as two digits, the Date/Time Picker function did not correctly reflect the date. This patch addresses that issue.
**Phone Dialer applet (dialer.exe)—**The Show View Call Log option doesn't display the date properly after successful completion of a telephone call. If the system date is adjusted to the year 2000, the date is displayed as 100, 101,102, and so on. For example, in the year 2000, you make a call using the Dialer applet. The log file created or appended to after the completion of the phone connection displays the year portion of the call date incorrectly, such as 101, 102, 103, and so on.
**Time and Date Control Panel applet (timedate.cpl)—**When you select the date February 29 and change the year using the up and down arrows in the Date/Time Properties dialog box, the calendar displays February 29 every year, whether it's a leap year or not. This is a display issue in the applet.
**DHCP Virtual Driver (vdhcp.386)—**Winipcfg /all - IP Leases obtained on or after 3/01/2000 are reported as being obtained the previous day. The system date is displayed properly but the DHCP client reports a date one day prior. For example, if you log on to a LAN after March 1, 2000, and you run Winipcfg /all from Start\Run or Ipconfig /all from a DOS VM, the lease obtained date is one day behind. After 2/28/2000, the lease obtained date is one day behind the expected date.
**Microsoft Foundation Class Library file (mfc40.dll)—**After the year 2000, programs that use the built in operators of the COleDateTime class may incorrectly parse a date . For example, 02/05/2000 may display as 2/05/100. Microsoft has modified the COleDateTime class so that it is less sensitive to program assumptions.
**DOS Xcopy (xcopy.exe, xcopy32.exe)—**When using xcopy in real mode with the optional parameter /D:date, xcopy does not accept years entered as two digits, except for the years 80 through 99. The message "Invalid date" is displayed. When using xcopy in protected mode (from within Windows) two-digit dates are accepted but are recognized as being within the 20th century (02/05/01 is seen as 02/05/1901).
**Microsoft Run Time Library file (msvcrt40.dll)—**Some applications that utilize this runtime library may behave as if the current time is one hour earlier than the correct time shown on the Windows clock. The problem will continue for one week from April 1 through April 8, 2001, after which these applications will shift to daylight savings time and again be in sync with the operating system. The problem results from the fact that April 1, 2001, falls on a Sunday, which confused a small algorithm in the run time library file that checks for the start of daylight savings time. This is not a year 2000 issue but rather a daylight savings time issue. It could occur in the years 1973, 1979, 1984, 1990, 2001, 2007, 2012, 2018, 2029, and 2035. What is common about these years is that April 1st falls on a Sunday.
**OLE AUTOMATION (oleaut32.dll, olepro32.dll, stdole2.tlb, asycfilt.dll)—**The Microsoft Automation library contains routines for interpreting two digit years and provides a convenient way for applications to create unambiguous (serial) dates. In Windows 95 the current two digit year cutoff is 1999. This means that two digit years beginning with 00 will be interpreted as being in the 20th century, i.e. 1/1/00 is converted to 1/1/1900.

Updating Microsoft Internet Explorer

Windows 95 Year 2000 Update will check your system for Microsoft Internet Explorer. If a version of Internet Explorer prior to version 4.01 Service Pack 2 is detected you will see a message explaining that it is necessary to install Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 to correct several minor year 2000 issues. If you are already using Internet Explorer version 4.01 Service Pack 2 or a later version of Internet Explorer, or if you do not use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your browser, the Internet Explorer components below do not need to be updated. For more information about Microsoft Internet Explorer and year 2000, go to http:www.microsoft.com/ie.

Note: The download time for Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 can be about 2 hours for a Standard installation, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

If you are using a version of Internet Explorer prior to 4.01 Service Pack 2 the issues listed below are corrected by installing this Update. For Internet Explorer 4.0X the following issues are addressed:

**Microsoft Virtual Machine—**Year 2000 issues have been reported in connection with Java virtual machines based on the Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit versions 1.1.1 through 1.1.5. Applications written in Java that make use of the java.txt.SimpleDateFormat class library may handle 4-digit dates incorrectly. For example, if you have a Java applet or application that uses SimpleDateFormat and you enter four digits for the year, the date functions may truncate the year and use only the first two digits (for example, 2000 might become 20).
**Microsoft Wallet (actpmnt.ocx)—**When entering credit card information in versions of Microsoft Wallet earlier than version 2.1.1383, you must enter the month, day, and year for expiration dates beyond the year 2000. Otherwise, information may not be handled as expected. For example, entering a credit card with an expiration date of 1/01 is handled as January 1 of the current year. This behavior was changed in Microsoft Wallet version 2.1.1383 and later.
**Microsoft Data Access (msdadc.dll, msadce.dll)—**The msdadc.dll file is part of the OLE DB core components and a part of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC). If you code to ADO, and your ADO Recordset includes Date data types, such as adDate, adDBDate, adFileTime, or adDBTimeStamp, and you're using a date format in which periods are used instead of slashes for date separator (for example, 01.01.98 instead of 01/01/98), and you specify a year less than 60, then Data Convert (msdadc.dll) might translate your date as a time. For example, 01.01.01 (January 1, 2001) might be converted to 01:01:01 (December 30, 1899, 1:01:01A.M.).
Click Product Guide.
In Compliance Information for Microsoft Products, select Microsoft OLE DB. Under Data Access, select Microsoft OLE DB.
Click Search, and the latest compliance documentation will be displayed.

For Internet Explorer 3.0x the following issues are addressed:

If a web site uses a cookie with a 2-digit year of "00", Internet Explorer recognized the cookie as expired. Cookies with 4-digit expiration dates, or expiration dates before and after the year 2000 are not affected.
If a web server communicates a 2-digit year of "00" in its HTTP/1.0 header, Internet Explorer will recognize pages on that site as expired and not cache them locally. Browsing of the site will work normally while connected, but will not be available for offline browsing. HTTP/1.1 headers, headers with a 4-digit year, or headers containing 2-digit years before and after the year 2000 are not affected.
If you change your control panel settings (International - Use Century format (1990 vs 90)) and browse to an FTP server with files created in 2000 (according to the server), IE will display the files as created in 1900.
The Javascript getYear() function/method calculates the year "00" (2000) as "100", and the year "01" (2001) as "101" etc. Scripts will need modifications to work around this issue.

The date function (java.util.date) in the Microsoft VM based on Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit 1.0.2 does not interpret two digit dates correctly. The function maps a two-digit date to the 1900s and doesn't take into consideration the year 2000.

Note: During the setup of Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2, if you choose the Installation Option "Browser Only Installation" rather than the default "Standard Installation", the updated files that correct the above year 2000 issues will not be installed. The "Browser Only Installation" will install only a subset of the entire Internet Explorer Service Pack and will not update your system for the above year 2000 issues. You should choose either the default Installation Option of "Standard Installation" or choose "Full Installation" to ensure that all updated files and Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 components are installed on your system.

Additional Issues

Microsoft Jet Database Engine 3.0 and Microsoft OFFICE 95 When you try to synchronize two members of a replica set that was created before the year 2000, and the current date on your computer is after the year 2000, a synchronization message might appear. This is because of how the expression service mishandles date entries in the MSysExchangeLog table in replicas. When a replica set created before the year 2000 is compacted after the year 2000, exchange information relating to synchronizations after the year 2000 is deleted from the MSysExchangeLog table. After this information is deleted, the generation information in the MSysExchangeLog table and the MSysGenHistory table does not match, and the replicas cannot be synchronized. To resolve this issue, download the latest Microsoft Office 95 Service Release from the Microsoft Web site at https://www.officeupdate.microsoft.com.

Microsoft Product Support Services

Technical support for this component is provided in the United States and Canada by calling (425) 635-7222, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. For help after hours, visit the Options topic at https://support.microsoft.com/. For customers using text telephone (TDD/TTY), technical support for this component is available by dialing (425) 635-4948 in the United States and Canada, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. For support information outside the United States and Canada, contact your local subsidiary. Phone numbers for Microsoft Subsidiaries are subject to change. For the most recent listing, see the Support Online Web site at https://support.microsoft.com/. If there is no Microsoft subsidiary office in your country, contact the vendor from which you purchased your Microsoft product. Microsoft's support services are subject to Microsoft's then-current prices, terms, and conditions, which are subject to change without notice.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED TO YOU FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ASSISTING THE PLANNING FOR THE TRANSITION TO THE YEAR 2000. THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS THE INFORMATION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE CONCERNING THE BEHAVIOR OF MICROSOFT'S PRODUCTS IN THE NEXT CENTURY AND IS UPDATED REGULARLY AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CONSQUENTLY, THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. MICROSOFT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, PUNITIVE OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY.

ANY STATEMENTS MADE TO YOU BY MICROSOFT OR CONTAINED HEREIN IN THE COURSE OF PROVIDING YEAR 2000 RELATED FIXES, YEAR 2000 DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS, OR REMEDIATION SERVICES (IF ANY) ARE SUBJECT TO THE YEAR 2000 INFORMATION AND READINESS DISCLOSURE ACT (112 STAT. 2386). IN CASE OF A DISPUTE, THIS ACT MAY REDUCE YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS REGARDING THE USE OF ANY SUCH STATEMENTS, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED BY YOUR CONTRACT OR TARIFF.