In August of 2005 the United States Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which 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.
I've cut and pasted the contents of the article to my blog, so feel free to go straight to it: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
This article summarizes the updates and tools that Microsoft is developing for its customers to address the DST change.
Microsoft is dedicated to working with customers to make this transition as seamless as possible for companies and organizations affected by these new time changes. Microsoft is further committed to working with others in the industry to address the broader challenges presented by this U.S. statute. Please check this page at least weekly to ensure you have the latest information available.
Change in daylight saving time:
Previously DST started on:
With the new law, DST will start on:
Previous DST ended on:
With the new law, DST will end on:
First Sunday of April
Second Sunday of March
Last Sunday of October
First Sunday of November
Would have been: April 1, 2007
Will now be: March 11, 2007
Would have been: October 28, 2007
Will now be: November 4, 2007
While the change in daylight saving time applies to U.S. and Canada, the change may affect users based outside of these countries.
• Mexico will not be following the new DST 2007 rules with the U.S. and Canada. Accordingly, systems configured to use U.S. time zones (for example, Pacific Time) will need to change their system configurations to use the new Mexico time zones.
• Companies or organizations with operations, customers, or vendors based in the U.S. or Canada may be affected.
• Companies or organizations that interact or integrate with systems that are based in the U.S. or Canada or rely on date/time calculations may be affected.
• Users in U.S. areas that do not observe DST (see below) but who travel to or interact with people in locations that do follow DST will be affected and should install the Windows operating system update.
Areas affected by this change in daylight saving time:
All of the United States except:
Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa
Canada
Canada and the United States share DST
Mexico
Mexico will not be following the new DST 2007 rules
The change in DST will have an affect on many automated and technology reliant products. Individual consumers, small to medium size businesses, and large enterprises may be affected by the new change in time. Computer-system related issues include, for example:
• Calendar / scheduling applications
• Date / time calculations (current and historical)
• Transaction logging (UTC vs. Local Time)
• Tariff billing applications
In many cases, making the necessary changes to accommodate the new DST legislation will be a relatively minor task. Users may need to manually adjust the time on their devices when the change occurs.
In other cases, more substantial efforts may be required. In some cases, systems and applications may need to be updated directly, while in others, the application may simply inherit or "read" the date and time information from the underlying system that it resides on so the changes need only be made to that underlying system. Given the broad range of technology in use today-and the integration of systems between customers, vendors, and partners-business and IT managers should determine what actions should be taken to mitigate the affects of DST 2007 on their organizations.
/// posted by kj
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