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February 16, 2007 4:00 AM PST
Wake up to the 'daylight saving' bug
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Congress decided in 2005 to extend the period of daylight saving time by three weeks in spring and one in the fall, reasoning that providing more daylight in the early evening would reduce energy use. However, the shift could cause trouble with software set to automatically advance its clock by an hour on the old date, the first Sunday in April, and not on the new date, the second Sunday in March.
"There has been a great deal of speculation of what the impact could be," said M3 Sweatt, chief of staff of Microsoft's customer service team. "For most people, the most apparent issue is that meetings and reminders may appear to be off by one hour."
But Microsoft may be downplaying the risk. Some say those companies that don't pay full attention to the issue are in for a rude awakening.
"We've been aware of the DST changes since late last year. But the tools and patches keep changing, or weren't available, which made it difficult to create a solid plan," said Warren Byle, a systems engineer at an insurance company. "This change might go smoothly for those who are prepared, but I think it will be the 'Y2K that wasn't' for the rest."
The move could impact time-sensitive applications other than calendaring, such as those that process sales orders or keep track of time cards. Gartner, for example, says the bug could lead to incorrect arrival and departure times in the travel industry and result in errors in bank transactions, causing late payments. In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours.
On top of that, the effect is expected to be felt around the world: Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change, and time zone shifts have happened in other locales as well.
| OS updates Forrester Research's roundup of how the Daylight Saving Time change affects certain operating systems. | ||
| Operating system | Update? | Reboot? |
| Windows Vista; Suse 10 | None needed | No |
| Windows XP (SP2); Server 2003, 2003 (SP1) | Automatic | No |
| Apple OS X | Automatic | Yes |
| z/OS; HP-UX; Suse 8.9; Red Hat EL, Desktop | Install patch | No |
| Solaris 8, 9, & 10; Aix 5.3 | Install patch | Yes |
| Windows XP (SP1), 2000, NT | Manual edit | Yes |
| Source: Forrester Research | ||
"It doesn't have to be Y2K to spell trouble for companies and governments," Phil Bond, chief executive of the Information Technology Association of America, said in a statement. "Organizations could face significant losses if they are not prepared."
The millennium bug cost cost the global economy billions of dollars, according to various reports. Analyst firm IDC predicted a price tag of $21 billion in the year 2000. The daylight saving problem "is not Y2K scale," according to a recent Gartner report, but it could generate business procedure and IT system problems that can be somewhat disruptive, the research firm said.
Microsoft and other software makers have created patches to make their products ready for the switch and have filled Web pages with tips for customers. IT pros and consumers alike have to apply those updates. Otherwise, they will have to deal with electronic clocks that may be off by an hour, for three weeks starting March 11 and again for a week in the fall, when they go back on November 4 instead of October 28.
Dealing with the patches should be straightforward for most consumers. Microsoft released a daylight saving fix for Windows XP Service Pack 2 on Tuesday, and it is pushing the patch out through the Automatic Updates feature in the operating system. An update is also available for Windows-based cell phones. However, the recently launched Windows Vista doesn't need a patch.
For businesses, getting ready is a different story. It isn't as straightforward to apply updates to Windows PCs and phones in a corporate environment, because of potential compatibility woes. Moreover, there are many other fixes that need to be applied, not just from Microsoft, but also from Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard and other software suppliers.
Companies using Microsoft's Exchange for e-mail, for example, face a real patch challenge. Microsoft has updates for the Outlook and Entourage mail clients, and for Windows Server and Exchange Server--all of which need to be applied in a specific order and in rapid succession.
Gadget owners beware
a DST transition on their own.
that will require patches
to deal with earlier DST.
Adding to the patch challenge, Microsoft also has fixes for its SharePoint and Live Meeting collaboration tools, its Dynamics customer relationship management software and its SQL Server notification services.
"There is a lot of work to implement the needed changes," said Stance Nixon, a network systems manager at Kushner, Smith, Joanou & Gregson, an accounting firm in Irvine, Calif. "The worst part is needing to touch every computer twice--the operating system and then Outlook. Even after that we will have to manually recheck every appointment."
See more CNET content tagged:
Y2K, Forrester Research Inc., Gartner Inc., SuSE, information technology
55 comments
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You see what the MORON's in the House did today? What will these Genius' do next?
If you don't bother to understand what's going on around you, maybe you should "keep your mouth shut and just not raise your hand".
Sorry All~ Just my Rant!
than just fix the DST schedule. You can change the clock in a Mac
without a restart as much as you want. An OS update from Apple
always requires a restart.
On the other hand, they also deserves to pay top dollars for their incompetence!!
ajit kapoor
Sheesh!
talking about daylight savings time is actually standard time.
That's what we are using right now. In the spring, we switch to
daylight savings time.
Most people would prefer to be in daylight savings time all year
round, and since this change adds more days in daylight
savings, it's safe to assume most would be in favor of it. Add to
that the energy savings from the change, and Congress is
actually doing a good thing in this case!
Not a pretty thing when you play with time.
What will be a bigger nuisance for the typical home-user will be all of those clocks, VCR's, TVs, etc, that automatically change for DST. Now they will be wrong and you will have to adjust manually 4 times a year (once to start DST, once to undo the automatic change, once to undo the automatic stop, and once to manually stop DST). Not a disaster - just inconvenient.
Then there is the non-tech nuisances. Unless all other countries that use DST fall in line, it's going to become somewhat confusing to remember what the time change is between different zones.
My own opinion, that said there's a good chance this change will stick if you look at public opinion.
The following should work for most:
1) download a NTP daemon / service app (there is a Win32 version at <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.meinberg.de/english/sw/ntp.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.meinberg.de/english/sw/ntp.htm</a> but I'm sure there are others out there)
2) turn off the auto adjust for DST setting in Time Settings
3) install the NTP service and configure to use the NTP Pool servers (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.pool.ntp.org/" target="_newWindow">http://www.pool.ntp.org/</a>) for time sync [note: if you use the NTP app above it sets this automatically]
4) start NTP service
The main problem is that the older OS's noted just don't know when DST will happen now so just don't let them change anything. If you have your TZ set right then a good NTP client will take care of the rest over night.
Now I have not tested the above except that I do run quite a few systems with NTP updating their time. The DST setting is just to save time on syncing but once it sees that the system is way off it should change the time to match just as if you had set the clock wrong by an hour.
Good luck.
NTP servers use UTC time to set the clock and rely on the local machines to apply the offset for time zones/DST.
Some binaries are poorly-written enough to not use system clocks (Veritas, I'm talking to *you*) which in turn will require an individual patch, but otherwise I've seen no real big problems whatsoever on the *nix side of the house.
'course, folks in Arizona can simply ignore the whole thing... lucky $#@^!s :)
/P
Applications set to run automatically at certain times will not run at the appropriate times if the OS clock is not set properly. Many banks have thousands of servers where the clocks are synchronized from a central source.
Boo hoo is right - I hope I make it through the weekend in 2 weeks.
Applications set to run automatically at certain times will not run at the appropriate times if the OS clock is not set properly. Many banks have thousands of servers where the clocks are synchronized from a central source.
Boo hoo is right - I hope I make it through the weekend in 2 weeks.
They had NEARLY TWO YEARS to put fixes in place for their products, and they wait until THREE WEEKS before it happens to now 'patch' a few things and warn everyone that everything MIGHT be wrong so don't believe any date in ANY of their apps? What a bunch of crap!
M$ has a strangehold on what, 95% of the market and they wait til now to PARTIALLY patch stuff?? If this isn't an abuse of MONOPOLY power I don't know what is! Seriously why do they get away with this? Why wasn't this fixed 6 months ago let alone within a month of the passed legislation??
This is caused and only PROPEGATED by the monopoly. They definitely could have FORSEEN the possibility that savings time could change in the future and make everything store appropriately for an easy patch later? That's typical bad forsight in design that is typical for them! That was like assuming that the sea level will remain constant for the next 100 years and put their Activation Support computer 1 inch above sea level, only to drown and render all those fresh OS installs useless in a couple of years or so!
Your reasoning is flawed, your knowledge of the issues is lacking, and your rant is idiotic. And, anyone who inserts a dollar sign when spelling Microsoft is, indeed, a basher.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.sia.com/business_continuity/html/dst.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.sia.com/business_continuity/html/dst.html</a>
Exactly the same as the potential for the Y2K problem!
But the Y2K problem panned out to be no problem at all... thus shouldn't this too be gaffed off as another Y2K scare?
NOPE!!!
The ONLY reason the Y2K when over almost flawlessly was because of all the media attention it drew. It caused people to double-check and triple-check to ensure they wouldn't have a problem.
On the other hand... if Y2K wasn't publicized the way it was... it would have turned out to be a much bigger problem.
This is just another similar instance. As long as it's properly publicized and everybody does what's required... it too will blow off as just another scare.
But if people don't take action properly... then it could cause problems... but it's not going to be the end of the world... just a lot of confusion, inability to connect, late transfers, incorrect calendars... a few problems here and there!
But it could cause routers to drop all packets as having been expired causing a virtual Denial of Service with the inability to access anywhere on the internet unless both users and router vendors patch properly.
FWIW
Thank you G. W. B. Thank you congress for passing the stupid law he asked for.
The DST only should affect the clocks and nothing more.
any program that is affected by DST was and is written so badly that it deserves to be decompiled and trashed ASAP anyway.
Just think about it....
All DTS dose is move our ACTIVE day time 1 hour forward and back not the real time.
it is an artificial time frame so we can partake an extra day light at the end of the day.
I sow comment that "well I will need to get up earlier and use some electricity in the morning instead of in the evening so where the savings?" well the savings come in the evening, because when you get up you might use some light then, but later in the day you can keep the artificial light use to a minimum longer then if you would on real time. also the DTS is not only for power savings, it also gives you more daylight
for recreation and it is good thing/
I have seen comments that DST update trashed outlook.
this is a MS fault big time. no schedule or appointment need to be adjusted for DST.
if I have a meeting @ 2:00PM in New York it is still at 2:00PM in New York DTS or not
now my clock needs to change and reflect proper time though. and all internal calculation and checks
need to use my clock and UTC clock to be correct but any appointment and entries should stay the same. nothing is changed for them. if MS have screw-up this they need to fix it ASAP.