Sometimes it seems that every invention of man is subject to some sort of foul-up, but Daylight Savings Time? Yes, even love-it-or-hate-it Daylight Savings Time (DST) may be causing computer problems in the next few weeks, due to a law that Congress passed in 2005.
Thinking that some energy savings can be had by having more sunlight at the end of a day, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which goes into effect this year, decrees that DST shall start three weeks earlier and end one week later than in previous years. As a result, we will “spring forward” this year at 2 a.m. on March 11, and “fall back” at 2 a.m. on November 4. According to www.daylight-saving-time.com, DST for the United States and its territories is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or the state of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation, which does observe DST).
As you may be aware, computer clocks and many computer programs automatically update their time to account for DST. The problem lies with software that was written or programmed before 2005, as it probably will not take the new DST standard into account. As such, we’re looking at a scenario reminiscent of “Y2K,” albeit on a smaller scale.
For those of you who were not fully sentient at the time, “Y2K” (shorthand for, “Year 2000”) refers to the fact that many computers and programs were not prepared for the year 2000 to even occur, as they were only able to count dates up to the year 1999, with many programmed to use “99” as a reference to that year. This meant that many systems would incorrectly interpret the year 2000 (“00”) as being the year 1900, which had the potential to cause massive, global computer failures. Almost everyone involved with computers began preparing for this eventuality as early as 1995, initiating huge computer upgrades around the world.
Some people like to smugly declare that they didn’t do anything to prepare for Y2K, and that “nothing happened, anyway,” as if to say that the Y2K “scare” was a hoax. The truth is that many crucial computer systems did fail when the calendar rolled over to read “2000.” The reason that things weren’t worse was that so many people made the effort to prepare.
To prepare for the DST “bug,” Microsoft has issued an alert stating that extra attention should be given to “meetings and appointments scheduled between March 11 and April 1, 2007, and between October 28 and November 4, 2007. View any appointments that fall into these date ranges as suspect…” Microsoft has also issued some downloadable updates to deal with the problem, but only for those using Windows XP with Service Pack 2. On these systems, Microsoft’s Outlook and Exchange programs are also covered, as folks using these programs for their calendaring functions may be among those most affected.
Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836 and you will find the DST update for Windows XP, as well as a link to the update for Outlook. There’s also a link to instructions dealing with users of Windows 2000. Users of Windows Mobile-powered devices should visit http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst. Apple users can try http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/daylight.html.