The annual dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. and Canada were officially extended by three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall, effective 2007.

DST now will begin on the second Sunday in March (formerly the first Sunday of April,) and will end the first Sunday in November (formerly the last Sunday of October).

Microsoft recently released a patch that resets DST to the new dates. Unfortunately, it causes existing appointments, within the expanded DST time, to spring forward one hour in the extra three spring weeks and to fall back one hour in the extra fall week.

To address the issue, meetings and events scheduled between March 11 and April 1 and meetings between Oct. 28 and Nov. 4 need to be reviewed carefully. They currently might be listed incorrectly by one hour. Group appointments or reserved conference rooms also might show the appointment incorrectly by one hour. All of these appointments moved by the application of the patch need to be corrected manually.

It might be helpful to include the actual time (e.g., 10:30 a.m. DST) in the subject line of corrected appointments to ensure that recipients have the correct time.

The steps to correct an appointment in GroupWise are as follows:

• select the appointment that needs amending
• right-click and choose the Resend menu option
• modify the time (and any other changes, if needed)
• click Send
• when prompted, choose Yes to retract.

The old appointment will be retracted and the new one will be sent to recipients.

The steps to correct an appointment in Microsoft Outlook are:

• go to the Calendar and open the Meeting
• make the changes to the times (change the start time to the correct time); the end time should automatically adjust
• click on the Send Update button on the tool bar, which will send an updated appointment to the attendees of the meeting.

For Macintosh-users who have OSX 10.4.5 or later (and purchased in the United States), no action will need to be taken. The problem was corrected in a previous update. Macintosh users who have  a version less than 10.4.5 or purchased outside the United States should contact the University Technology Services Help Desk at 7-1800.

For any questions about the changes or for using another calendar program, call the University Technology Services Help Desk at 7-1800.

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