Beginning in 2007, daylight saving time (DST) will be extended in the United States in compliance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Act was passed to combat growing energy concerns. This results in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than in previous years. For 2007, that means that DST will begin on Sunday, March 11, and end on Sunday, November 4. This change can potentially impact all time-bearing products such as computers, software applications, clocks, watches and mobile phones. Unless certain updates are applied to your enterprise's computers, the time zone settings for the computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period which has a direct impact on your Outlook calendars meeting times. Therefore, you must make sure that both your Windows operating systems and your calendar programs are updated.

Even if the updates are applied, there’s no guarantee that the party sending a meeting request has made the changes, so many experts are recommending that you verify the times for all meeting requests through the first weekend in April.

Microsoft has set up a website to address these issues and made downloads available to patch the software. Patches are only available for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP related products. Computers running earlier versions of these operating systems will need to fix the problem manually with the time zone editor Microsoft has made available. A time zone data updater is also available from Microsoft specifically to address Outlook issues. If you are running Windows Vista, you do not have to make any changes.

Don't forget to address how systems with older operating systems will be updated.

Additionally, your staff will need to be informed of the changes and advised to verify their appointments for meetings which include external people.

If you have questions or need additional help, please contact us.