Why not change DST manually ?

[Lex]

Am I missing something or is there any reason not to just manually change daylight saving time on the PC and PPC manually? I turned off "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" on the PC and I figure I can adjust the PPC clock on the new DST date, and again when it changes on the old DST start and end dates. I don't use mine to wake up in the AM so there's no bother if it's an hour off either way the day of the necessary changes.

[Darius Wey]

Am I missing something or is there any reason not to just manually change daylight saving time on the PC and PPC manually?

Alternatively, is there any reason why you wouldn't have it change automatically? The option exists for the purposes of automation, to avoid user error, and to allow applications (and yourself) to plan ahead (scheduling appointments, etc.). I think most would lean toward the benefits of that than the benefits derived from a manual change (if they even exist).

[Lex]

Having seen the steps involved at the MS site to patch Outlook, patch the PPC, patch XP, it isn't frightening but the degree of difficulty is less with an easy manual time change a few days a year. I could still be missing something. I'm a power user, not a programmer.

[Sven Johannsen]

The issues arise when you are syncing appointments between the PC and PPC and if you get appointments via e-mail or something as an invitation. Since the internal appointment time is always stored in universal time, and then offset for display, by the TZ and DST seting, it is very easy for the appointment times to be off.

Since the PC has the direct option of using or not using DST, and the PPC only supports that indirectly by having settings within a TZ that don't observe DST (if such exist) there have always been problems with folks having things sync appointments an hour off.

So, if you have something like Vista, which already understands the new DST, and a PPC that doesn't, for a couple of weeks, your appointments will sync with an hour offset. Changing the clock won't fix that. You could change the TZ on the PPC to compensate, but that will move all your existing appointments by an hour.

When the device updates for DST, note that it doesn't just change the clock time. It also adjusts the amount of offset for the internally stored events, without changing the displayed time. So it is kind of like changing the TZ, but without the effect of shifting all the appointments.

You want it to do it correctly.

[Phoneboy101]

Thanks, Sven, for the explanation. I ranted in another post about why a simple time change has to screw up my appointment times. You shed some light on that mystery. I thought I had all updates installed on my PPC and PC. If some of my times are screwed up, does that mean I don't have the proper updates?

Any suggestions on resolving this? In particular, many of my repeating appointments are off by an hour.

[tregnier]

Sven,

What's the process? All my recurring appointments are wrong now? How do I rectify? I'll bet there are a lot of others with the same issue.

Thx.