ACC95: QBE Grid and Property Sheet Save Date Values as String

When you specify a two-digit date as a criteria in the QBE grid or an object's property sheet, the way the date is resolved as a four-digit date may differ, depending on the system settings of the computer on which you run the query.

Microsoft Access 7.0 stores criteria values from the QBE grid and property sheet settings as strings. These values are evaluated at run time. In the case of dates, your system settings will determine how a two-digit year will be resolved to a four-digit year.

You can ensure that date criteria and property sheet settings are interpreted the same way on all computers by entering them with four-digit years instead of two-digit years. For example, type #1/1/1999# in the QBE Criteria row to ensure that the query will look for records on January 1, 1999, regardless of the system settings of the computer running the query.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
This problem no longer occurs in the Office 95 Year 2000 Update.

To download the the Office 95 Year 2000 Update, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Microsoft Access resolves two-digit years into four-digit years differently, depending on the operating system that you are using. If you are using Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0, dates are converted based on the version of OLEAUT32.DLL that is installed on the computer.

When you run Access on a Windows 98 computer, the way dates are resolved into four-digit years is dependent on the date window that you set on the Date tab of the Regional Settings dialog box.

The following is a list of properties that you might enter a date into:

Table Properties

• ValidationRule

Table Field Properties

• DefaultValue
• ValidationRule

Form Control Properties

• ControlSource
• DefaultValue
• ValidationRule

Report Control Properties

• ControlSource

While other properties, such as RecordSource, RowSource, and Filter, may contain date values, these are programatic changes and are interpreted at run time.