I'm looking for a way to keep the date on an old computer from changing. any freeware available, or any thoughts?

You probably need to replace the motherboard battery.

It is a small disk battery like a camera battery.

sorry, I want the computer to keep the same date forever, or reset itself each night to today's date

Why?

Windows and the BIOS depend quite a bit on having the correct time and date.

I have some software I run on one of my computers occassionally, only thing I run on that computer. the company died and went away a couple of years ago. If I keep the same date (reseting it every few days, it will still run, if I let the clock go past a certain date, it will self destruct. been doing this for a year, and it's a pain in the butt. I don't use it often, but I do need it, and there is no replacement

You can try turning off W32 Time or Wndows Time in the Services.

Not sure if this will actually stop the clock and also not sure what other problems it will raise.

It will certainly fill up your Event log with Time errors.

start Run... services.msc


Or else how about changing the year instead of the date.

no, I can't go back more than 1 month. It's not a problem if I remember it. but the divorce from hell and the subsequent nervous breakdown (couldn't contact my kids for 6 months - after seeing them daily) has disrupted my memory. easy to forget things