There are two major issues involved in assessing the readiness of your personal computers for Y2K: Hardware and Software. Hardware issues revolve around a part of your computer called the BIOS. The BIOS is the part of your computer responsible for, among other things, telling your programs what date it is. Some BIOS systems will misinterpret the year 2000 to be 1900. This problem is much more common in computers built before 1996 than it is in newer computers. There are several utilities available which can help you determine if the BIOS in your PC is Y2K compliant. Here is a resource from C|NET to help you choose the right program to test your PC for Y2K compliance.   If you would prefer to download a free utility to test your PC hardware for compliance, check out YMARK2000 by NSTL. If your computer is not Y2K compliant, there are several hardware and software based solutions available to help you fix the problem.

Once you are sure your computers are Y2K compliant, then comes the harder part: making sure your software is Y2K compliant as well. This includes checking your operating system, application software, and data to be sure that dates continue to be interpreted correctly into the next century and beyond. I say this is the harder part because it only takes a few minutes to run a hardware checking utility, but the task of determining which versions of operating systems & software packages you are using, and then researching each one to be sure they are Y2K compliant can be daunting. This is especially true because many programs are "semi-compliant", meaning IF you use them correctly, they should work fine. This usually involves programs that let you choose to use 2 or 4 digit year dates. If you have been entering 4 digit dates into these programs all along, you’ll probably be OK, but if you haven’t then you may be facing the Y2K bug square in the face.

When evaluating your software, you must also look at your data, especially within spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are most vulnerable because they usually start as blank grids where the user fills in numbers, formulas, and DATES for automatic calculations to be made. Because spreadsheets are made by average users and not by professional programmers, they are even more likely to be using 2 digit dates for calculations.