Product Reviews
July/99

Symantec Canada. "Norton 2000 Corp. Edition" Contact: Kevin Krempulec, Account Representative Phone: (416) 446-8305 Reviewed By: Daniel ffolliott PCCT Webmaster

The February '99 issue of Windows Magazine hailed Norton 2000 as "The best Y2k hardware and file checker in one complete package". The software comes in a Retail Edition (for small business & home users) and a Corporate Edition (for larger Organizations & Government). Both versions offer essential capabilities for conscientiously addressing a wide range of potential Y2k problems facing desktop and laptop PCs.

• Use a boot floppy to test the system realtime clock (RTC) and BIOS. It can also fix a non Y2k compliant BIOS in many cases.
• Scan installed programs and operating system against a database of known Year 2000 problems.
• Include data scanning of datafiles and reports possible 2-digit date calculation anomalies in spreadsheet formulae, database fields, forms and even text.

This feature alone is worth the price of the package
The application database of Y2k compliant applications is kept up-to-date with your modem or Internet connection, using Symantec's LiveUpdate function. Having spent countless hours in the past trying to locate this information on my own, from other vendors' website, it is reassuring to have Norton 2000 do much of the leg work for me. I should caution though that while Norton 2000 will identify other Vendors' software patches and drivers for you on Symantec's database, you will have to subscribe to Norton Web Services if you want Symantec to do the downloading of the actual third party software fixes as well.

Norton 2000 Corporate Edition
The Corporate Edition which I tested is capable of handling centralized administration and reporting on a network of up to hundreds of desktop PCs. It also handles networked PCs running Windows 3.1. The package comes with Norton 2000 Database 1.0.1 for keeping track of the results and progress across the network, but to do that it requires to be running NT 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server database. The package also included:

• Norton system center, an administrator console for managing testing in a LAN environment
• Tivoli Manager for Norton 2000, which integrates with third party Y2k project management tool, Tivoli IT Director (purchased separately).

Installing Norton 2000
I have a stand-alone Pentium 133, running Windows 98 and it was only after installing all three components of Norton 2000 that I discovered that The Norton Database 1.0.1 only applied to Networks running NT 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server. Anyway, I am happy to report that the add/remove programs uninstalled correctly on my first attempt and I was able to reinstall successfully without the Database. In a practical sense I suppose a non-networked user probably would not be installing the corporate edition in the first place, but I did find the terminology just a touch too ambiguous for my precise thinking style.

At the end of the install process I was prompted to perform a LiveUpdate of the Application Database, which I did using my cable Internet connection.

Norton 2000 Execution Wizard
The Wizard that comes up the first time you run Norton 2000 guides you through a 3-step process:

1. Tests the System Date functions (BIOS and Realtime Clock - RTC) as well as checking the Windows short date format, which should be set to use a 4-digit year.
2. Checks installed applications against the Norton 2000 applications database for known Y2k issues.
3. Scans datafiles, especially databases and spreadsheets for 2-digit years and related issues.

Note: I was warned to test for viruses and reminded to perform a LiveUpdate before running the program tests.

Step 1 - The BIOS Test
Note: When I installed Norton 2000, I opted to include biosfix.sys as a TSR in the config.sys file. This ensures that the century rollover will take place correctly if my computer is running during the century change.

My computer passed this test with the TSR installed, as well as recognizing 2000 and 2004 leap years. A convenient summary of my BIOS test results was then displayed onscreen.

I then went a step further and created a BIOS reboot test floppy disk from the Tools menu. When I rebooted using this floppy containing the file biostest.sys, I was able to perform an even more exhaustive hardware test.

• On my system the realtime clock date will be correctly set, both before and after January 1/2000 on reboot, but will not roll over if the computer is running at the time of changeover, unless I install the TSR.
• If I expect my system to be running at midnight on December 31/1999, I can achieve an automatic rollover by installing the Norton biosfix.sys TSR or replacing the BIOS.
• The leap year calculations tested ok for the years 2000 to 2015.

Step 2 - Application Scan
The application scan took about 30 minutes on my computer, which has about 55 installed programs. It created a very comprehensive on screen report containing information about:

• Those applications claimed by their vendors to be Y2k compliant
• Applications about which no Y2k information is currently available
• Applications identified as having Y2k issues

I concentrated my attention on the third category. The on screen report listed the issues in order of severity and gave vendors' URLs to look for further information and downloads of patches.

Although the report itself was most useful, I was somewhat surprised to learn that Norton 2000 did not either download or install any of the identified patches. Instead I was invited to sign up for another Symantec product, Norton Web Services, at and additional cost of $29.95/year to obtain a complete Internet software update service (not just Y2k). (Fortunately I already have a free 6-month subscription that came with my purchase of Norton Utilities3.0 recently).

Note: An aspect that I was unable to determine during my review was how Norton 2000 detects an application for which I have already installed Y2k patches.

Step 3 - Datafile Scan
This is undoubtedly a must have feature for anyone who has critical spreadsheet or database files on their system. I have only a few such files and the scan took only 8 minutes. However, the report was surprisingly comprehensive and even wen down to the single cell address level, pointing out potential problem areas in cells not just with date formulae but text date contents as well.

Conclusion
Year 2000 compatibility is a "moving target". New Y2k issues continue to come to light and you will probably want to run a LiveUpdate of your Norton 2000 application database frequently and rerun your Norton 2000 program regularly.

Buy this product now and be a part of the loop as vendors continue to monitor and publish new Y2k issues as they come to light.

Check out also the University of Illinois at Chicago Norton 2000 information at http://www.uic.edu/year2000/norton.html

Minimum System requirements
Windows 95/98, NT (will not install on Win 3.1)
Intel 486 or higher
with 8 Megs of RAM and
12 Megs of hard drive space
CD ROM drive