Sunny skies for Microsoft users? Well…

When Congress, in a rare show of energy conservation consciousness decided to spring forward on Daylight Saving Time, it seemed like a good idea. Jumping the clock switching dates to March 11 and November 4 made the DST period four weeks longer and thus in theory saved that much more energy.

There’s just the little problem of computers to consider, with several firms announcing patches for their devices to handle the new date, including Microsoft.

On Friday, Microsoft announced a patch to handle what amounts to a newly-created bug in its Dynamics CRM 3.0 package that can adjust for the Daylight Saving Time changeover: Now available are Dynamics CRM 3.0 Time Zone Data Updates and Dynamics CRM 3.0 Update Time Zones Wizard, which include updates for Dynamics CRM 3.0 Service Provider Edition as well as updates and the wizard required for installing updated time zone definitions and adjusting dates and times in Dynamics CRM 3.0 records that are affected by changes in time zone definitions.

Problems with the new clock adjustment would be most prominent in critical customer data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, records that feature time stamps. Microsoft also released a patch for Windows mobile smartphones and pocket PCs, plus tools to update Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Outlook for the new DST rules.

Of course, not all is hunky-dory in Microsoft land. Over at IT World Canada, folks from Toronto’s Info-Tech Research Group are calling the patch for Microsoft Exchange 2003 “faulty,” noting that patch instructions released by Microsoft “may result in some unpleasant surprises for … users.” Info-Tech Research reported discovered the faulty patch “as its own IT departments were preparing for the DST shift.”

In response to some 20,000 documents Microsoft has released on applying DST patches (and concomitant confusion), Info-Tech Research has released its “Exchange 2003 DST Chaos Survival Guide,” a nice set of instructions on how to properly implement the patch.