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Dire predictions notwithstanding, your computer probably won't explode when you fire it up on January 1, 2000. It may have trouble starting, or some software may not run--but even these problems are avoidable. If you'd rather not add an extra headache to your New Year's Day hangover, you can prepare your PC now for the year 2000 with the help of Y2K utilities.

You probably already know the origin of the problem: In the early days of computers, memory was so expensive that, to save space, PCs were designed to store only the last two digits of each year. In the world of personal computers, the Y2K problem shows up in three basic areas: First, some systems' hardware won't be able to make the date change. Second, not all software programs handle two centuries properly. And third, some of the data within files may end up in the wrong century, depending on how it was entered.

Who Needs What

How you go about successfully Y2K-proofing your PC depends on what you use it for. If you use your computer exclusively for activities like Web surfing, e-mail, word processing, and games, you need only test your hardware--a job that takes 5 minutes. We looked at five free hardware diagnostic programs: About Time Group's EZcheck2000, Accute's Y2K Super Test, Micro 2000's Centurion Year 2000 Test, NSTL's YMark2000, and Viasoft's OnMark 2000 BIOS Test & Fix. Of these, OnMark 2000 wins our recommendation, thanks to its simple, easy-to-understand results.

If you run a full-fledged business from your computer, you probably use a number of date-dependent programs (like spreadsheets and databases), all of which should be checked for Y2K compliance. The information you and other people have entered may already be full of dates that are 100 years off the mark. For instance, someone in your company may be entering client birthdays into a worksheet as standard six-digit dates (05/03/64), unaware that Excel is erroneously placing some of those dates in the 21st century.

To help you determine which software to update and which data to correct, we looked at six Y2K suites designed to do just that: Greenwich Mean Time­UTA's Check 2000 PC Deluxe, IMSI's Year 2000 Now, Intelliquis's IntelliFix 2000 Pro 3.5, Network Associates' 2000 Toolbox, Planet City Software's Millennium Bug Compliance Kit­Survive 2000 Edition 5.0, and Symantec's Norton 2000 2.0. Check 2000 PC Deluxe and Norton 2000 excelled at finding software and data problems--but they didn't catch everything.

Finally, we examined tools designed to meet specific needs, including a stand-alone data scanner (2000Tools Group's Datefind-db 4.1), a software inspector (Discover Y2K from ID Four), and two tools for fixing Excel worksheets (2000Tools Group's DateSpy Professional 3.0c and Microsoft Excel Y2K Plug-Ins).