COMMAND

    WS_FTP

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

    WS_FTP LE v5.06

PROBLEM

    James Nerlinger, Jr. posted following.  WS_FTP LE v5.06 is an  FTP
    client that is offered as an unsupported product by Ipswitch.  The
    product is widely used among students as well as many others.  The
    issue is that it appears it is not Y2K compliant, specifically, it
    translate file dates beyond  12/31/99 properly.  However,  this is
    NOT Y2K issue (see below explaination).

    James's  client  machine  is  running  Windows 98SE, all available
    patches applied and  his server is  Windows NT4/SP6A running  IIS.
    A file dated  1/4/00 has a  local date of  1000104 and the  remote
    has a date of 42949653960104.  He logged into the server with  the
    standard Windows 98 FTP client and  the file dates look fine.   He
    also checked out a couple of  other sites and had the same  dating
    issues.

    Ipswitch claims  the problem  is due  to the  way Win9x/NT has the
    regional date, short date style, set by default.  The  information
    that Ipswitch is providing on their support page:

        http://support.ipswitch.com/kb/WS-20000103-DM01.htm

    is  identical  to  a  Hoax  message  that was sent last August and
    addressed by Microsoft at:

        http://www.microsoft.com/msn/y2k/hoax/hoax1.htm

    The issue  is how  an application  interprets display  dates if it
    uses them for calculations.   Many Microsoft applications use  the
    short  display  date  for  calculations.   Outlook Calendar is one
    example.  Both Outlook '97  and Outlook '98 use the  short display
    date when  calculating the  date to  display on  a given calendar,
    and both applications may do so incorrectly.  Microsoft recommends
    that the short display  date be changed from  a 2-digit year to  a
    4-digit year to  correct the problem  with their own  applications
    such as;

        Outlook '97 Calendar
        Outlook '98 Calendar
        Visual Studio Query Designer (pre-SP3)
        Microsoft Cordless Phone 2.0

    as seen in, e.g.

        http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q246/3/89.asp

    That  said,  this  does  not  mean  that  the applications are not
    "Y2K-compliant", and  Ipswitch should  not be  claiming that  this
    setting is  faulty.   Ipswitch is  welcome to  require a change in
    the  regional  short  display  date  setting  in  order  for their
    application to work properly.   They should, however, not try  and
    muddy the waters by making  it seem that all applications  require
    this in order to work properly.  Microsoft does recommend that the
    regional short  display date  be set  to a  4-digit year, but they
    say this in order to ensure that data input is unambiguous.

SOLUTION

    Expectations should  not be  lowered simply  because a  product is
    free.  There are no  problems with the PRO v6.01  99.01.29 version
    although there's one report  indicating that an earlier  Pro v6.01
    did demonstrate the problem.