Microsoft KB Archive/288946

= You Cannot Manually Change the Short Date Format Field Without the Use of Delimiters =

Article ID: 288946

Article Last Modified on 3/1/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition

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This article was previously published under Q288946



SYMPTOMS
In Control Panel, if you double-click Regional Options, click the Date tab, and then examine the Short date format list, you can observe that you are limited to the options that are available on the list.

The options that are available in the Short date format list can be used in the operations of many businesses, especially financial institutions. Many financial institutions use multiple currencies and process financial transactions that are based on the date format for a particular country. To avoid date misinterpretation, some financial institutions use a format that combines both alpha and numeric masking.

An example of this format is &quot;02JAN2000.&quot; If you use this format, you can avoid any possible misunderstandings of a date format, such as, 02/01/2000, which can represent either January 2 or February 1. If a financial institution processes a transaction from one country to another, the potential exists for serious misinterpretation of the date of the transaction.



WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, use the apostrophe (') character as a separator for delimited text that is in the short date format. For example, the ddMMMyyyy date format can produce the same result as ddMMMyyyy, or 31May2001.



STATUS
This behavior is by design.

Keywords: kbenv kbnofix kbprb KB288946

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