Y2K bug lurking in Microsoft VB, Access

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Y2K bug lurking in Microsoft VB, Access

Story Here

Some of the problems Web sites had ticking over successfully from 1999 to 2000 are likely to be caused by a Y2K bug in Visual Basic 3.0, as evidence emerges of Y2K problems with old versions of Microsoft Access 2.0.

Although Microsoft has upgraded Visual Basic several times since version 3.0, the program was used for many years in large, medium and small businesses, as was Access.

Laurence Rogerson, a consultant and director at Web firm Hubcom, said yesterday that he had encountered several Y2K related problems with version 3.0 of VB.

He said: "If you open up the immediate window and type in ? Year("3/1/00"), it returns 1900". He said that testing he had performed on one application which was built with VB 3.0 and uses some old VBX support files, queried one database for names between October 1899 and January 1900. It then bombed out because none were returned, he said.

Rogerson added that VB 3.0 was used in many corporate environments to develop applications. "It surprised me when I discovered the problem as I just assumed it would apply the current century to a two digit date but it seems that it doesn't," he said. "It works OK with a 4 digit year though, e.g.: ? Year("2/1/2000") => 2000 as does ? Year(Now())."

He said: "I'm much more concerned with Microsoft Access 2.0 applications as this comes from the same time and suffers the same problem as well There are masses of those still around as the later versions just do not work with Windows 3."

However, the situation may not be as black as it is painted. There are several references on the MSN site to problems with Access 2.0 for 16-bit Windows.

The main reference can be found here, and according to a reader, Microsoft has fixes for the engines in both VB3 and Access. .

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), January 07, 2000

Answers

This is a bit OT from your post, Bob, but last night I encountered a MS bug. My home Pentium computer running Windows 95 had been "Y2Ked" -- bios and software updated, date changed to roll correctly into 2000, etc. Last night I went to run the disk utilities (scan disk, defrag, etc.) and they indicated that these utilities had NEVER been run on this PC, which I know is not true. I went into the "settings" to "date/time" and noticed that the year was now 2094. I changed the date back to 2000, ran my utilities and logged off. I turned it on a bit later, and the date was back to 2094. I just left it, since this is a non-critical home system.

This little experience left me wondering, what if this computer ran a critical system at a chemical factory, payroll for a company, my taxes for the IRS...

Is it being paranoid to wonder these things? Perhaps. Still, I can't help but think about all the "compliant" systems that may not really be.

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 07, 2000.


Uh, websites running VB3?

I don't think so.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 07, 2000.


Ron: Routines written in VB3 could be called from a web site's CGI- WIN interface. We were doing this about 4-5 years ago using a combination of VB3, Access, and O'Reilly's Web Site to program very simple database applications.

I still have some of the VB3 code from this era laying around if you are interested in seeing it...

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 07, 2000.


I have one company still running a DB app I built in Access 2.0. They refused to do the smart thing, which was fix the problem. It was simple, Upgrade to any newer version of Access, and I would change my fields out from short date to long. Yes - I built it with short dates. Y2K wasn't even talked about then + who the hell would believe that one of the largest health care providers would refuse to upgrade simple PC software for 7 years?????????

It's hardly a disaster. They could probably get by with a simple Access upgrade and ignore the field changes.

Maybe I WILL get into Y2K consulting still.... if people believe 1/10 of 1% of what is posted on this board I can still bilk some companies for a few thousand.

-- H.H. (dontscrewme_2000@yahoo.com), January 07, 2000.


I hate to sound cold hearted, but anyone running a website using VB3 for a data engine wrapper probably deserves what they get.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 07, 2000.


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