>>By coincidence, just today I was working on a computer (Vista32) whose date was way off - it thought it was 2002. This had some interesting side effects:
>>
>>1. Although the Windows Time Service/NTP client was properly configured to synchronize with time.windows.com, the client was refusing to set the datetime correctly because there is a maximum number of seconds of adjustment it is allowed to apply (in this case, considerably less than 8 years). So, the date required manual adjustment.
>>
>>2. Windows Update fails with an obscure 0x8007xxxx code if the datetime is wrong. So, a machine may get way behind on Microsoft updates.
>>
>>3. Most, if not all https: secure web sites fail. If you look at the error details, you get something like "the certificate is not valid until {some date in the [real] future}". You think, WTF? until you realize that the START of the certificate's valid period is later than the computer's time, and for some reason the error message reports the END of the certificate's valid period. For example, a certificate may be valid from May 2008 to May 2013, so a browser will complain if it thinks the current date is in 2002.
>>
>>Simply manually adjusting the date correctly fixed all these weird problems - accurate time syncs now working, a whole raft of Windows updates coming through, secure sites now working properly.
>
>And they are talking about introducing selfupdating software in cars.
>Vintage cars will get premium prices...
>
>regards
>
>thomas

And we'll get new meanings for for GPF, BSoD or RRoD?
(okay, okay... the RRoD is a hardware problem, not a software problem)