Date changing 2028....2029......1930???????

  • Thread starter Thread starter evilcowstare via AccessMonster.com
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evilcowstare via AccessMonster.com

Hello!

I have a slight problem, in my form i have a date section which is automated
as 00/00/00. I use these for part of a report as a from this date to this
date, if you put 010125 it will automatically change it to 01/01/2025. The
thing I have found is that it is fine until you get to 010130 and then it
saves it as 01/01/1930 :-/ any ideas?

Thank You
Jay
 
Assuming you're using XP, go to Regional Settings in the Control Panel, and
click on the Customize button. Look on the date tab, and you'll see what
Windows is using as its instructions for interpretting 2 digit years. (It's
there for other versions of Windows as well, but I can't guarantee that the
instructions for finding it are identical)
 
evilcowstare said:
Hello!

I have a slight problem, in my form i have a date section which is
automated as 00/00/00. I use these for part of a report as a from
this date to this date, if you put 010125 it will automatically
change it to 01/01/2025. The thing I have found is that it is fine
until you get to 010130 and then it saves it as 01/01/1930 :-/
any ideas?

Thank You
Jay
Click to expand...

That is the curse of using two digit years (remember Y2K?). In your Windows
Control Panel Regional settings there is a setting that determines what 2
digit value represents the cross-over value for assuming "19" as the first
two digits versus "20". You can teak that if your app will never be used on
any other PC. Otherwise the *correct* thing to do is to use a four digit
year.
 
Change the Input mask of the date field, so the user will have to input 4
digits in the date field, that will solve you the problem
 
Thanks everyone, guess i should make them 4 digit then lol.

Oh well, stupid pcs lol

Thanks Again to you all
Jay

Ofer said:
Change the Input mask of the date field, so the user will have to input 4
digits in the date field, that will solve you the problem
Hello!
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
Thank You
Jay
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks everyone, guess i should make them 4 digit then lol.

Oh well, stupid pcs lol
Click to expand...

ummm...

Don't blame the PC.

My late friend Anita was born in '97. So was one of her great-granddaughters.

What century is 8/1/28 in? That depends on the context; if it's somebody's
birthdate then presumably it's the 20th century; if it's the maturity date of
a thirty-year bond it's probably in the 21st. But without knowing what the
user intends it is ambiguous. The "stupid" PC must make some sort of
reasonable guess, or should simply disallow the two-digit shortcut.

John W. Vinson [MVP]
 
Then you would have thought it would just stick to one and not change after
29 yrs
I still think it is stupid :-) lol
 
Assuming you're using XP, go to Regional Settings in the Control
Panel, and click on the Customize button. Look on the date tab,
and you'll see what Windows is using as its instructions for
interpretting 2 digit years. (It's there for other versions of
Windows as well, but I can't guarantee that the instructions for
finding it are identical)
Click to expand...

You can't really give instructions for WinXP any more for using
Control Panel, because they introduced the ridiculously useless
category view.

In Win2K, you just open the Regional Settings tool and go to the
Date tab. That's much simpler than your instructions. What, exactly,
did MS think they were improving by making it more complicated in
WinXP?

(this is exactly why I've always rejected WinXP -- it adds
complexity where none is needed, and tries to bleed it away (e.g.,
security) where it is essential)
 
David said:
You can't really give instructions for WinXP any more for using
Control Panel, because they introduced the ridiculously useless
category view.

In Win2K, you just open the Regional Settings tool and go to the
Date tab. That's much simpler than your instructions. What, exactly,
did MS think they were improving by making it more complicated in
WinXP?

(this is exactly why I've always rejected WinXP -- it adds
complexity where none is needed, and tries to bleed it away (e.g.,
security) where it is essential)
Click to expand...

First thing I do on every XP box is switch Control Panel to "Classic View".
Or are you referring to something else?
 
Then you would have thought it would just stick to one and not change after
29 yrs
I still think it is stupid :-) lol
Click to expand...

Think about it.

Do you want 06 to refer to 2006? Sure. That's last year.

Is it ok, then, to have 99 refer to 2099? Probably not; 1999 was only eight
years ago.

If you DO want all two-digit years to refer to 21st century dates, go for it:
follow the instructions elsewhere in the thread.

John W. Vinson [MVP]
 
I know exactly what your talking about, same as what other people said, I
just found it strange how there is a cut off at 2029 thats all.
Thanks for the help you did give
 
David W. Fenton said:
You can't really give instructions for WinXP any more for using
Control Panel, because they introduced the ridiculously useless
category view.

In Win2K, you just open the Regional Settings tool and go to the
Date tab. That's much simpler than your instructions. What, exactly,
did MS think they were improving by making it more complicated in
WinXP?

(this is exactly why I've always rejected WinXP -- it adds
complexity where none is needed, and tries to bleed it away (e.g.,
security) where it is essential)
Click to expand...

In the Category view, "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options" is one of
the categories, and from there you can still choose the "Regional and
Language Options" icon. (You're right, though, that I could have been more
explicit, but like Rick I always switch to Classic View, so I sometimes
forget about the "alternative" approach)
 
First thing I do on every XP box is switch Control Panel to
"Classic View". Or are you referring to something else?
Click to expand...

Well, sure. I also switch the interface to Classic. And I turn on
display of extensions and hidden files. And I turn off Simple
Networking. And a whole host of other things that have the wrong
settings in the default installation.

But if you're giving instructions for how to do something with
Control Panel, you have to realize that not everybody has the same
view -- they may be using the default Category View.
 
In the Category view, "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options"
is one of the categories, and from there you can still choose the
"Regional and Language Options" icon. (You're right, though, that
I could have been more explicit, but like Rick I always switch to
Classic View, so I sometimes forget about the "alternative"
approach)
Click to expand...

I suspect that most of us who are answering questions here do the
same thing.

But we have to make our answers usable for the people who *don't*
know the things we do!

And that's extremely hard to remember how to dom in many cases.
 
I
just found it strange how there is a cut off at 2029 thats all.
Click to expand...

Where would you want the cutoff to be?

That is, how would you want your computer to guess what you mean?
 
David W. Fenton said:
I suspect that most of us who are answering questions here do the
same thing.

But we have to make our answers usable for the people who *don't*
know the things we do!

And that's extremely hard to remember how to dom in many cases.
Click to expand...

I generally focus on the answer to the question asked.

"Change the setting in Windows Control Panel"

If the poster doesn't know how to do that then that is a separate question.
 
Well you would have thought that the people that designed access would have
put it in as an option, so you can decide where the years should start from
yourself. So for example if you put 2001 then it would automatically change
any date from that so if you put 30 it would know it would be 2030 not 1930.
There seems to be lots of things access could have done to make life a lot
easier.
Oh well
 
It IS an option, not in Access itself, but in Windows.

As I've already said, you need to look at Regional Settings to change it.
 
yeah i know its an option in windows but thats only good if its going to be
on just one pc, if it moves about then it would have been good to have
something in access that you can set so that the db picks up on the settings
you have chosen automatically
It IS an option, not in Access itself, but in Windows.

As I've already said, you need to look at Regional Settings to change it.
Well you would have thought that the people that designed access would
have
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
Click to expand...
 
yeah i know its an option in windows but thats only good if its
going to be on just one pc, if it moves about then it would have
been good to have something in access that you can set so that the
db picks up on the settings you have chosen automatically
Click to expand...

But that's the whole point why you need to eliminate the problem by
requiring 4-digit entry of years. You're quite right that you don't
want the behavior of your application to change just because it's on
a different PC, and when Y2K happened, I was among those who wished
that there was a setting internal to Access for this.

But MS is often not very smart about things they put in Access. For
instance, Autocorrect (not Name Autocorrect, which is an abomination
of another type) is a component shared between all the Office
programs, and it's based on user-entered data. But Access defaults
to Autocorrect being ON in all textboxes and combo boxes. It's not
such a tragedy for textboxes, but it's the stupidest thing on the
planet for combo boxes. I first encountered this in an app where a
user was trying to choose an item from a dropdown list and when they
chose it, the Access said "not a valid item from the list." Why? It
was changing "cafe" as it was spelled in the dropdown text to "café"
because that was an Autocorrect entry, and "café" wasn't one of the
choices!

So, sometimes MS's efforts towards "ease of use" conflict with the
goals of a database program, where you want to insure the validity
and accuracy of data. Because of that, you as a developer have to
take responsibility for overriding these default MS configurations,
which means you have to force 4-digit entry of years or write your
own validation code, and you have to make sure you go through and
turn off Autocorrect on all your dropdown lists.
 
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