Martin Heller
Contributing Writer

Calendar Hell: DST, Outlook, and Windows Mobile

analysis
Mar 14, 20073 mins

I thought that updating my computers for this year's extended daylight savings time would be easy. It was, all except for the one I actually use to track my calendar. That was a little squirrely. Because I use about seven different email servers, I keep all of my appointments and most of my stored email on one Outlook 2003 instance running on a Windows XP desktop in my office. I have an iPaq that

I thought that updating my computers for this year’s extended daylight savings time would be easy. It was, all except for the one I actually use to track my calendar. That was a little squirrely.

Because I use about seven different email servers, I keep all of my appointments and most of my stored email on one Outlook 2003 instance running on a Windows XP desktop in my office. I have an iPaq that I keep synchronized to that Outlook instance so that I can take my calendar and task list home with me. Old stuff, I know, but it still works.

A Microsoft patch last month automatically updated all of my Windows computers to the new DST schedule. Once it ran, three weeks of my appointments showed up shifted an hour: my 2 PM conference call at 3, and so on. I was under the impression that a later patch to Outlook would automatically correct this, but it never happened; my understanding now is that it was a manual patch.

When the DST transition happened early Sunday morning, the Windows computers all updated their clocks properly, but the iPaq didn’t. I manually shifted the time an hour forward, and went about my business. When I put it in its cradle on Monday, however, it changed the time back when it synched. I changed it forward again, and went through my day. Outlook was still showing appointments an hour late, but the iPaq was showing them at the correct time, so I went by the iPaq.

When I took the iPaq home, its time was again off by an hour. Once again, I manually corrected the time on the device.

By Tuesday, I’d had enough. I manually corrected my three weeks of appointments in Outlook, and then went looking for a fix for the iPaq, which was now showing all its appointments an hour early as well as showing the time an hour early. Yes, indeed, there was a Windows Mobile patch for the extended DST period, and applying it and resetting the device fixed the problem.

I’m just as happy I didn’t apply it earlier, however. Apparently, an earlier version of the Windows Mobile patch, issued in February, was defective, and was replaced early in March.

What about the patch for Outlook? Given that I’ve manually corrected all the affected appointments, applying it now would screw them all up. I’ll pass.

I really hope I don’t have to go through all of this again in the Fall.

Martin Heller

Martin Heller is a contributing writer at InfoWorld. Formerly a web and Windows programming consultant, he developed databases, software, and websites from his office in Andover, Massachusetts, from 1986 to 2010. From 2010 to August of 2012, Martin was vice president of technology and education at Alpha Software. From March 2013 to January 2014, he was chairman of Tubifi, maker of a cloud-based video editor, having previously served as CEO.

Martin is the author or co-author of nearly a dozen PC software packages and half a dozen Web applications. He is also the author of several books on Windows programming. As a consultant, Martin has worked with companies of all sizes to design, develop, improve, and/or debug Windows, web, and database applications, and has performed strategic business consulting for high-tech corporations ranging from tiny to Fortune 100 and from local to multinational.

Martin’s specialties include programming languages C++, Python, C#, JavaScript, and SQL, and databases PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, Google Cloud Spanner, CockroachDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, and Couchbase. He writes about software development, data management, analytics, AI, and machine learning, contributing technology analyses, explainers, how-to articles, and hands-on reviews of software development tools, data platforms, AI models, machine learning libraries, and much more.

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