It turns out that Zune owners did have to wait for the year to tick over, and then force a reboot - either by removing the battery or by waiting for the power to rundown. There's an infinite loop in the clock code dealing with leap years:

The unfortunate part is that there isn't anything that can be done to fix this besides somehow changing what the clock is set to (which is exactly what the battery disconnection trick ends up doing). On the other hand, it shows that Microsoft is correct: tomorrow, everyone's Zunes will operate normally again.

There is the intense embarrassment for whoever wrote that code - I sure wouldn't want to be him or her right now...

Hat tip Troy

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