Here’s a few examples that could perhaps support this testimony of sorts:

1) http://digg.com/news/technology/Why_I_Still_Use_Windows_95
2) http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/281517
3) http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-95/anyone-use-windows-95/169457.html

Many more examples can be found elsewhere, on google, antique places, etc.

Also, Number 216 mentions another valid point, the six-day long school week in Japan used to be in place until 2002. Here’s an article that’ll show it:

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/schueller.356/educational_systems

And here’s right off part of one of the paragraphs’s there on the article that I’ll cite, straight out of the article:

“Japan ’s schools are divided into trimesters; each of which is followed by some sort of vacation time. The school year starts on April 1st and ends March 31st of the following year (p. 12). Until 2002, students went to school 5 ½ or six days a week, depending on their grade level (p. 13). Since 2002, school weeks are only five days long, but the government requires students to attend school at least 210 days out of the year (“Education in Japan” , 2006).”

Knowing that information, that info may support that notion that Haruhi Suzumiya, the main story, does take place in either 2000 or 2003, and that 2003 is not out of the board, yet. It’s up to a matter of interpretation from there, , depending, so there ya go. If I’m missing anything or have questions, do ask, if I have left anything out, or have holes in my own investigation to this topic, lol :P

I think too much on minor/other details, lol XD

It HAS to be 2000.

Putting that aside, if I remember correctly, when I was watching the Haruhi movie that came out this year sometime ago, there was a scene there (can’t say where, due to reasons that I might spoil something for the others), where the computer in the literary club room looks just like one of the older model computers of the 90s up to early-mid 2000s, and when it was turned on, Windows 95 was used on the computer (Release date of Windows 95: August 24, 1995, unsupported as of 31 December 2001), so obviously, that’s just one more proof that the story can’t possibly, in the realm of reasoning, take place in the late 2000s, let alone Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody taking place in 2007, as for those who’ve read the light novels, that can be easily inferred, if you look into all the other small details.

So, looking at that, possible other dates that be guessed, is that another possible date where Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody took place at could be even as early as 1997, which that, too, sounds rather reasonable enough, since, back in Vol. 1, Kyon says this in the prologue of the 1st light novel book: “When I graduated from middle school, I also graduated from those childish dreams and became used to the normalcy of the world. Nineteen ninety-nine was my last hope and it wasn’t like anything was going to happen that year anyway. We reached the twenty-first century without humankind making it beyond the moon. It looked unlikely that travel to Alpha Centauri and back within a day would happen in my lifetime.” That’s straight out of context. That, and that one scene in the Haruhi movie I mentioned would further back up the claim.

So, that said, the dates that sound rather reasonable, as to when Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody took place at, dates-wise, could still be 2000, or it could possibly be as early as 1997, possibly.

*checks volume 3*

Dang.

“What time plane is this?”
Sitting besides me, Asahina-san replied,
“From our time of origin, it is now July 7th three years ago. It’s about nine at night, I guess?”
“Is that so?
“Yes.”

It couldn’t have been 2000. Someone would have noticed the field over the weekend.