Thanks to Congress, the USA next week is changing the dates when local time zones switch from Standard Time over to Daylight Savings Time.
If you are running Vista, then you don't need to do anything, other than to beat your head against the wall for switching to Vista in the first place.
If you are running XPsp2 AND are getting automatic updates from Microsoft, then you, too, are automatically set. Your PC will change the time at the proper date.
For the rest of us, there's some patching to do. One option is to take your version of Windows off of automatic DST update and just change the time manually. But that's a hassle. The other really cool option is to download a small tool from Microsoft called TZEDIT.EXE and run it. You can get it here.
Once unpacked and run, this tool allows you to tweak the rules your PC uses for determining the start and stop dates for the DST switchover. There's a good help file, but here's what you do:
(1) Run the utility. Pick your time zone and select "Edit."
(2) Change the name if you want, so you will know it's been tweaked. Here in Oregon I picked "(GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); 2007 adjustment."
(3) For Start Day, pick "second sunday of March."
(4) For End Day, pick "first sunday of November."
(5) Reboot. That's it.
What you've done is to tell Windows to make the switch 3 weeks earlier and delay the return to standard time 1 week later. This tool supposedly works on all versions of Windows, and was especially made for all the numerous w2000 users, for whom official Microsoft support is no longer available.
EDIT: Well, I tried updating an old w98se computer, and it wouldn't run at all. So I guess the tool is good for all versions of XP and 2000.
EDIT: The version of TZedit I downloaded from Microsoft wouldn't run on the old w98se system, but lo and behold, there is a version that does! It's on the w98se installation CD, under tools\reskit\config.
If you are running Vista, then you don't need to do anything, other than to beat your head against the wall for switching to Vista in the first place.
If you are running XPsp2 AND are getting automatic updates from Microsoft, then you, too, are automatically set. Your PC will change the time at the proper date.
For the rest of us, there's some patching to do. One option is to take your version of Windows off of automatic DST update and just change the time manually. But that's a hassle. The other really cool option is to download a small tool from Microsoft called TZEDIT.EXE and run it. You can get it here.
Once unpacked and run, this tool allows you to tweak the rules your PC uses for determining the start and stop dates for the DST switchover. There's a good help file, but here's what you do:
(1) Run the utility. Pick your time zone and select "Edit."
(2) Change the name if you want, so you will know it's been tweaked. Here in Oregon I picked "(GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada); 2007 adjustment."
(3) For Start Day, pick "second sunday of March."
(4) For End Day, pick "first sunday of November."
(5) Reboot. That's it.
What you've done is to tell Windows to make the switch 3 weeks earlier and delay the return to standard time 1 week later. This tool supposedly works on all versions of Windows, and was especially made for all the numerous w2000 users, for whom official Microsoft support is no longer available.
EDIT: Well, I tried updating an old w98se computer, and it wouldn't run at all. So I guess the tool is good for all versions of XP and 2000.
EDIT: The version of TZedit I downloaded from Microsoft wouldn't run on the old w98se system, but lo and behold, there is a version that does! It's on the w98se installation CD, under tools\reskit\config.