February 2007

Daylight Savings Time Change

Y2K all over again?  Not really, but there is potential for impact due to daylight savings time changes adopted by the United States and Canada.

The Issue

In order to extend the benefits of Daylight Saving Time, the U.S. Congress passed legislation which effectively adds one month to the current DST period.  In previous years, Daylight Saving Time began the first Sunday in April and continue to the last Sunday in October.  Under the new changes, Daylight Saving Time will start the second Sunday of March and continue to the first Sunday in November.

The Impact

With the exception of Windows Vista which already has code to deal with the new DST changes, previous operating systems will require patching.  Those systems include:

It is particularly important that servers functioning as primary time providers or timekeepers for Kerberos authentication be updated as soon as possible.

Additionally, products such as Microsoft Outlook will also require updating in order to incorporate the time changes.

The Resolution

As long as servers and workstations have been configured for automatic updates from Microsoft, the appropriate patches should already be installed.  If it is unclear whether or not the DST updates have been installed, re-installing the patch will generate a message stating that the same or new time zone changes are already installed.

Update patches can be obtained directly from Microsoft.  The following URLs can be used to locate and download the appropriate patch:

Microsoft Windows          http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836
Microsoft Outlook            http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926666

For more information or assistance with these updates, please contact us.

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