Prepare for Daylight Saving Time Changes!

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Highlights

	Daylight Saving Time to Change in 2007 Beginning in 2007, daylight saving time (DST) will be extended in the United States... read more here!
	How do I know if my company is affected? Several Microsoft products are affected by the 2007 daylight saving time change... read more here!
	Products That Run on a Product That Must Be Updated No specific update is required for compliance with the Energy Policy Act... read more here!
	What Users Can do to Ease theTransition All users of Microsoft products affected by the time change should give extra attention to... read more here!

Daylight Saving Time to Change in 2007

The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress July, 2005, extended Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. As a result, beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer. These four weeks are referred to in this article as the "extended DST period."

Unless certain updates are applied to your computer, it is possible that the time zone settings for your computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period. In particular, you must make sure that both your Windows operating system and your calendar programs are updated.

What that means for your company?

The change in daylight saving time (DST) will affect many technology products that are currently used for scheduling, time calculating, transaction logging, and billing. Making the necessary changes to accommodate the new DST legislation will frequently be a minor task. Unless certain updates are applied to your computer, it is possible that the time zone settings for your computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period. This depends on where you live and which time zone you have selected. To see the time zone settings on your computer, follow these directions.

When your time zone settings are incorrect, your clock may be off by one hour, and certain applications running on your Windows-based computer may not display the correct time. To address this, Microsoft is providing many free updates and tools that will update your system automatically.

Given the broad range of technology being used today — and the integration of systems between customers, vendors, and partners — business and IT managers should determine what actions should be taken to lessen the effects of DST 2007 on their organizations.

Up

How do I know if my company is affected?

Several Microsoft products are affected by the 2007 daylight saving time change. If you are running any of the products in the following list, you should review the guidance published on the Microsoft DST Web site to determine what steps you have to take.

Microsoft Windows	Microsoft Exchange Server
Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 SP1 Windows XP SP2 Windows XP SP1 Windows XP Windows ME Windows 9x Windows 2000 Windows NT4.0 Windows Mobile Windows CE	Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Exchange Server 2000/Exchange Conferencing Server 2000 Exchange Server 5.5 Exchange Server 2003 Lotus Notes Connector Exchange versions out of mainstream support Exchange Update tool
Microsoft Office	Windows SharePoint Services
Outlook 2003 Outlook 2002 Outlook 2000	SharePoint Services 3.0 SharePoint Services 2.0
SQL Server Notification Services	Microsoft BizTalk Server
SQL Server 2005 Notification Services SQL Server 2000 Notification Services	BizTalk Server (all versions)
Office Live Meeting	Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Office Live Meeting	CRM 3.0
Visual SourceSafe	Entourage
Visual SourceSafe 2005 Visual SourceSafe 6.0d	Entourage 2004

Products That Run on a Product That Must Be Updated

No specific update is required for compliance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for the following products. However, the following products use the Windows operating system date and time in the application:

Microsoft Dynamics GP
Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains
Microsoft Dynamics SL
Microsoft Business Solutions - Solomon
Microsoft Dynamics AX
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System
Microsoft Retail Management System
Microsoft Point of Sale
Microsoft Small Business Financials
Microsoft FRx
Microsoft Forecaster
Business Portal

References:
For more information, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst This Microsoft Web site contains more information about the following items:

Updates for Microsoft Windows
Updates for the affected Microsoft applications
Information about the DST changes that are required for Windows operating systems, Windows SharePoint Services, and for Microsoft Office programs.

What Users Can do to Ease the Transition

All users of Microsoft products affected by the time change should give extra attention to meetings and appointments scheduled between March 11, 2007 to April 1, 2007 and October 28, 2007 to November 4, 2007, referred to here as the "extended DST period." (In this article, the terms "meetings" and "appointments" will be used interchangeably.) Users should view any appointments that fall into these date ranges as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees to make sure that the item shows up correctly on everyone's calendar both internally and externally. To minimize confusion during the affected date ranges:

Include the time of the meeting in the e-mail request so that invitees can double check the correct meeting time (such as, "Project brainstorming - 11:00 A.M. Central Time").
Exercise caution with the appointments and meetings in the extended DST period. When in doubt, verify the correct time with the organizer.
Consider printing out your weekly calendars during the extended DST period prior to applying the Windows patch containing the updated time zone definitions and running the Outlook Time Zone Update tool so that you can keep track of which meetings were scheduled before and after you run the tool.

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