Patch Update - Is Your PC Ready For Daylight Savings Time?

As you may or may not know, the United States Congress has changed the way the US handles Daylight Savings Time.  The new law changes the dates of both the start and end of daylight saving time (DST). When this law goes into effect in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier -  2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March and will end one week later - 2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November) than what had traditionally occurred.

While not another Y2K problem, it can cause some problems. For many PC's such as Windows, Macintosh and Linux, a patch may be needed to correct this change with DST.

For most computer users, the effect would likely be an inconvenience at worst. If your Computer is configured to connect to network time servers (NTP), which is used to sync your clock to the correct time, then you will not be effected. If you Computer does not conect to any network time servers, then a patch will be required.

Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows XP has released a global time zone update patch for Windows XP SP2 which will correct various other time zones issues in addition to the U.S. time zone change.  It is available via Windows Update and Microsoft Update. Currently, the update is not set to download automatically. For more information about downloading and installing the update manually, see this Microsoft Knowledge Base articles: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388/.

Microsoft Vista will not require any update as it has already incorporated the changes into the new operating system.

Versions of Microsoft Windows prior to XP SP2 are unsupported by Microsoft and will not have patches deployed to handle the change. Users will be required to change the time zone settings manually.

More information about Microsoft's time zone changes in general can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx.

Specific information about Microsoft Outlook changes can be found here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102086071033.aspx?pid=CL100626971033

Macintosh OS X
If you are running Mac OS 10.4.6 and above, the patch to correct any time zone starting and ending periods should already be installed. You can make sure you have the most recent updates by going to the Apple menu and selecting Software Update.

For versions earlier than OS 10.4.6, you must manually change the time once Daylight Saving Time goes into effect by following these step:

Go to the Apple menu, select System Preferences, click Date & Time, then click the Date & Time tab.  Then either drag the clock to the correct time or click the up and down arrows for the correct time.  Make sure Set date & time automatically checkbox is unchecked.

OS9 users will need to go the Apple menu, select Control Panel, then select Date & Time and change the time manually from there.

Unix/Linux
If you are running a distribution of Unix, you should look for updates from that distribution’s web site.