The extension of daylight-saving time by a month in the United States is causing enormous grief for some IT administrators running Microsoft software, as many of the software programs running on their users’ systems need to be individually patched to reflect the change.
This year, DST (daylight-saving time) starts on Sunday, March 11—three weeks earlier than usual—and ends a week later than usual on Nov. 4.
Microsoft has been warning customers that unless certain updates are applied to their computers, the time zone settings for their 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,” the company said on its support site.
In an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the DST change and the problems being experienced by its customers, at 5 a.m. PT on March 8 Microsoft opened its DST Support Central Site, a series of sites in Redmond, North Carolina, Las Gallinas and in India, where 24-hour support is provided for customers who run into escalations.
“I have been here [in Redmond] all day long, and I have seen very few escalations come through from our field. But it is early, so we may see more tomorrow and the next day. But today we have not been flooded with requests for information and guidance or help,” M3 Sweatt, the chief of staff for the Windows Core Operating System Development Group, told eWEEK.
But, that being said, Microsoft was already working closely with its enterprise customers to ensure they had what they needed.
“Some of them are happy, some of them are not. But we are working with them as best we can to make sure we are addressing their issues,” he said.
As such, the Redmond software maker has also posted a list of the most commonly asked questions it is receiving about DST, which customers can easily search to find the answers to their questions, he said.
