XL: Two-Digit Years Don't Follow Windows 98 Regional Settings

ID: Q184964

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c
Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
Microsoft Windows 98

SYMPTOMS

In the versions of Microsoft Excel that are listed at the beginning of this article, if you enter a date that uses only two digits for the year, the date may appear to be incorrect.

For example, if you enter 1/1/50, the date may appear as 1/1/1950, not 1/1/2050.

CAUSE

This problem may occur when the following conditions are true:

You are running Microsoft Excel on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows 98.

-and-

You use the controls in the Date tab of the Regional Settings icon in Control Panel to change the date range that is used by two-digit years.

Specifically, this problem occurs because the versions of Microsoft Excel that are listed at the beginning of this article do not follow the two- digit year settings in the Date tab of the Regional Settings dialog box under Microsoft Windows 98.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, use four digits for the year instead of two digits when you enter a date in a cell. For example, if you want to enter the date 1/1/2050, type "1/1/2050" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER.

If you must use two-digit years, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for more information:

Q164406 : XL: How Microsoft Excel Works with Two-Digit Year Numbers

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Windows 98, you can control the behavior of dates that use two-digit years by following these steps:

On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

Double-click Regional Settings. Then, click the Date tab.

Near the top of the dialog box, you see the following:


   When a two digit year is entered, interpret as a year between:

   [ 1930 ]  and  [ 2029 ]

The second date (2029) is in a control that allows you to specify a different year. If you change this value, the first date (1930) changes so that a one-hundred-year span is covered that between the two dates. When you click OK, programs that follow these settings change their behavior with respect to dates that use two-digit years.

However, the versions of Microsoft Excel that are listed at the beginning of this article do not follow these settings because they were released before Microsoft Windows 98. Each program uses different behavior. For more information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q164406 : XL: How Microsoft Excel Works with Two-Digit Year Numbers

For more information about how Microsoft products are affected by year 2000 (Y2K) issues, please see the following Microsoft World Wide Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/topics/year2k/default.htm

Additional query words: XL97 XL5 XL7 5.0 7.0 year2000 y2k year 2000 calendar


Keywords          : kbdta kb2000 xlformula xlwin 
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0,5.0c,7.0,7.0a,97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: April 20, 1999