PPT98: Some Date Field Formats Appear Incorrect After Year 2000 on Macintosh OS 7.x (236327)

SYMPTOMS

If you run Microsoft PowerPoint 98 Macintosh Edition on a Macintosh with version 7.x of the Macintosh OS installed and the system date on your computer is between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009, some date formats may appear incorrect in PowerPoint.

For example, if the date is April 4, 2004, and you click Date and Time on the Insert menu in PowerPoint, the Date and Time dialog box contains choices for 4/4/4 and 4-April 4 instead of 4/4/04 and 4-April 04.

NOTE: This symptom does not affect all date formats. Any date format that displays a four digit year will be correct.

CAUSE

This is a problem with versions 7.0-7.6.x of the Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS). The current date is converted to a text string by the operating system.

This problem was corrected in version 8.0 of the Macintosh Operating System.

RESOLUTION

You can either update your Macintosh computer to Mac OS 8 or later, or you can choose a Date and Time format that displays the year in four digits.

MORE INFORMATION

You can see the same issue outside of PowerPoint. If your system date is April 4, 2004, and you click on your Menu Bar clock to view the date, the date appears as 4/4/4 instead of 4/4/04.

Although this symptom starts when your computer's clock is set to January 1, 2000, this is not really a Y2K issue. It is only a formatting problem. Neither PowerPoint nor the Macintosh Operating System misinterpret the year 2000. Unlike Y2K issues, this problem goes away once your system clock is set to the year 2010 (or later.)