Microsoft Releases Fix For Y2K Bug Affecting New Year Emails

Remember the early days of the internet when everyone was deathly afraid of the Y2K bug? Well, Microsoft started off 2022 with a similar-style error that affected its Exchange 2016 and 2019 servers. 

For those unfamiliar, the Y2K bug was a scare that occurred leading up to the turn of the millennium. When the first computer programs were created in the 1960s to 1980s, many developers used the last two digits of the year to reflect the date (e.g. 96) instead of typing out all four digits. 

However, as the year 2000 approached, programmers were worried that computers would interpret the 00 as 1900 instead of 2000, as per National Geographic. They feared the mistake could have led to many services such as banks, transportation, and more being affected, as they rely on accurate numbers to function.

A report by Bleeping Computer first alerted that Microsoft the company had released a temporary fix for this year’s  glitch, which had occurred precisely on New Year’s Day.

Users discovered that dates from January 1, 2022, were “too large” for the software’s antivirus scanning engine, leaving it constantly crashing and unable to send out emails.

According to Engadget, Microsoft’s emergency solution was to use a PowerShell script to pause two services, replacing the older antivirus engine files with a new one in order to restart the servers’ operations.

At the moment, the solution requires manual input that could be troublesome for large corporations, though an automatic fix is in the works. 

It’s unclear why the firm hadn’t been aware of the problem, especially considering how recent its Exchange software is. Fortunately, the outage occurred on a public holiday, when most of the world was still hungover from New Year’s Eve shenanigans instead of in the office waiting on emails. 

[via Bleeping Computer and Engadget, cover image via The Art of Pics / Shutterstock.com]