COMMAND

    Y2K

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

    Win NT (post SP4)

PROBLEM

    Ilya Slavin found following.  Those of you who are in the  process
    of deploying SP4 or are planning  to do so should be aware  that a
    new Y2K problem was discovered  in this service pack.   Here's the
    scoop.   In the  course of  Y2K testing  of Windows  NT server and
    workstation, Ilya  patched the  OS and  all applications  to their
    vendor recommended Y2K levels (that included SP4 on both types  of
    systems as well  as other fixes  on the workstation).    The  test
    itself  was  to  set  the  clock  30  seconds prior to midnight on
    December  31,   1999  and   initiate  a   large  file   copy   (by
    right-clicking on  the initial  file in  Explorer, selecting copy,
    and then paste in the destination folder).  The object was to have
    the copy process complete in 2000.  This way the new file creation
    date would be in one year, and the last access date will be in the
    next.   What  Ilya  discovered  was  very  troubling.   On several
    attempts to run  the test, both  NT Server and  NT Workstation (on
    two different computers)  failed to roll  the clock into  the next
    year (while succeeding on most other attempts).  Instead they went
    from 11:59:59PM on December 31st,  1999 to 12:00:00PM of the  same
    day, thus adding another 12 hours to it.

    These  results  were  confirmed  by  Russ  Cooper  (the  moderator
    NTBugTraq mailing list)  with a few  twists:  sometimes  the clock
    can go forward by 12 hours instead of back.  Also, it appears that
    this problem does  not happen when  you use the  copy command from
    the DOS shell.  While this may not seem like a very big deal, this
    bug may be troubling.  Depending on the system call that  triggers
    this problem (there  have to be  over a good  dozen different ones
    occurring in the process of a file copy), this may turn out to  be
    a serious problem.  Please keep in mind that Microsoft is claiming
    commitment to Service Pack 4's Y2K compliance (as well as  Service
    Pack 3's compliance "with minor issues").

SOLUTION

    There's number fot this bug and that's all.