Old Versions of Windows and Daylight Saving Time: The Phantom Menace

Thu Feb 1, 2007 4:22PM EST

See Comments (52)

Reader Bob Hunt wrote me to ask about Windows 98 and daylight saving time. As you (hopefully) know, DST moves three weeks earlier this year, to March 11 (yech!). And as you also hopefully know, Windows has long since automatically changed your clock for you when daylight saving time hits.

If you're using XP or Vista, no worries about the new DST rules. But what if you're using Windows 2000 or earlier? Microsoft no longer supports Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millennium Edition at all, and Windows 2000 is only supported through "Extended Hotfix Support." In other words: You're out of luck.

So what are you options for handling daylight saving time (or daylight savings time, if you're sloppy) and you don't want to upgrade to a more modern OS? Not a lot.

First, how about automated solutions? If you're running Windows 2000 you can check out IntelliAdmin's unofficial patch for DST at this link. I've tried it and, like other IntelliAdmin products, it works fine.

If you're running Windows 95, 98, or NT, I haven't found an automated solution, but you can try Microsoft's Time Zone Editor, which lets you manually update time zones. I don't have any PCs running any of these OSes, so I can't really tell you how easy this tool is to use, but it's worth a try. (Update: Here are detailed instuctions on using TZEDIT. Scroll down to "The Windows Time Zone Editor tool.")

I hesitate even linking to this, but in the interest of completeness, if you're computer friendly, Microsoft has instructions on hacking the registry to make DST changes yourself without extra software. Experts only!

Lastly, you can always do what we did in the days before Windows 95: Change your computer clock manually (and change it again when it gets auto-changed three weeks later). Even if you forget to change it for a day, I think it's safe to assume that most PCs running Windows 98 are not doing anything so critical that having a one hour error in the time stamp is going to cause the world to implode.

Good luck, and if anyone discovers any automated Win 95/98/NT DST fixes, please post them here or email me so I can update this post.

Update: IntelliAdmin finally has a patch for Windows 98 and Windows Me. Thanks, John!

Comments on Old Versions of Windows and Daylight Saving Time: The Phantom Menace

Post a Comment

Join in the discussion. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.

  • 26 Posted by hvnjn on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    cnull - it may not be an ideal solution but it really isn't a hard thing to do and sounds like the only quick solution anyway

  • 27 Posted by beachbum1326 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm pretty sure that jayseei9941 eas talking about those who have a later version of windows.do ya think?

  • 28 Posted by johnlrichards on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:39PM EDT Report Abuse

    Changing your time manually is not a viable option for many users. Your computers clock does not change for DST- just the time zone offset changes. If you change the time and send someone a meeting request, it will be an hour off when they get it. If you are a member of an active directory domain, having your clock an hour off may prevent you from authenticating to the network (kerbios relies on a timestamp) - at least until the windows time service resynchs you. If you are a home use, and don't care about scheduling functions, go a head and change the clock.

  • 29 Posted by gccs14r on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:07PM EDT Report Abuse

    None of you guys do tech support for non-techies, do you? Anyone who has ever had to go turn on someone's power strip (because of a "dead computer" call) knows that the clock better set itself or his voicemail box will be full on Monday. I tried tzedit on a 98 box and it didn't work, so I wrote my own registry tweak based on the fix tzedit did for NT. I'd rather not have any 98 or NT boxes, but I don't have control over that.

  • 30 Posted by willor1946 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:47PM EDT Report Abuse

    Move to Arizona. They don't change time there, so its nto a problem.

  • 31 Posted by marktboulder on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:08PM EDT Report Abuse

    So here's a fun one! If you have recurring appointments entered in Outlook that extend into and beyond next week, Outlook apparently automatically shifts them to be an hour later! So, a recurring 5PM appointment becomes a 6PM appointment when daylight savings time hits. Beware. This is on XP with Office 2003.

  • 32 Posted by falafelgizzardbrains on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    For all of you who want to just change the clock. This is easy enough for a home user who is effectively an admin on their computer, but for an IT professional who is responsible for updating 500+ workstations that are secured so that users cannot make local changes this pretty much stinks. Now living in Hawaii ... that sounds like a pretty good 'fix'!

  • 33 Posted by john_lippert on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:39PM EDT Report Abuse

    real stupid article. just change the frigging time with a double click. real hard to do.

  • 35 Posted by randbodude2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:28PM EDT Report Abuse

    duh..take 2 scs and change it back! get back to WORK!!!

  • 36 Posted by brooklynboy315 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:13PM EDT Report Abuse

    This reminds me of Y2K. The sky is falling.....the sky is falling.....give me a break.

  • 37 Posted by mdburn_em on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:14PM EDT Report Abuse

    Well, it's good to know that all of the experts that know nothing have posted the extent of their (non) knowledge on this site. Boy, wouldn't it be nice if the only computers people had to worry about were personal pc's? Ignorant people shouldn't post on subjects as if they are experts.

  • 38 Posted by letshaveaparte on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:49PM EDT Report Abuse

    It's a strange world we live in now, everything has to be automatic or we start to panic, this problem can be solved very easily, just set your clock ahead manually on the 11th and then if you forget easy, put a post-em note on your monitor to take your clock back an hour on the 25th, the origanal date that the older Window programs set the daylight saving time automatically. Wouldn't you think that would be much easier than going through all that work installing another program that will change the clock on it's own? I myself have Win XP on most of my computers and them take care of the time on their own, but if they didn't for some reason I would set the clock automatically just the same. I also see no problems with anything that you are running on your computer that would really matter if you set the clock manually. All I'm saying is the easiest way around this is to just do it yourself and forget about all them programs that set the clock automatically, it's more than it's worth.

  • 39 Posted by volinv on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    Chris, I wish you'd written about something more interesting. :-) I don't see the harm in setting the clock by unchecking the "automatically adjust for daylight savings" option. Problem solved.

  • 40 Posted by stephanniwood1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:41PM EDT Report Abuse

    Wow- "...and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.." I understand the simplicity of the lower-right-corner-double-click, as well as the Outlook calendar drama. (Im a corner-double-clicker myself) This time change will, however, be stress for companies which are not preparing ahead of time. For example, some companies have timeclocks for employees which automatically switch over for the time change. If a program debug is not implemented to begin this process 3 weeks early, it will affect personnel managers all over the U.S.! Can you imagine all the slips to correct someone's hours manually? Poor folks. I feel for ya. My thoughts? Depend on mankind... in the long run, technology will eventually catch up! :) Thanks for the article.

  • 41 Posted by aztek001_1974 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:00PM EDT Report Abuse

    People like "jaysei9941: show thier ignorance and keep IT engineers employed!

  • 42 Posted by btroyrefi on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:14PM EDT Report Abuse

    Why the "yech" to the new dst? Unless you are a vampire why would you not want more daylight to acutally get home from work and still do something enjoyable outdoors????

  • 43 Posted by lakers4evr on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:56PM EDT Report Abuse

    You can turn off the automatic DST clock change option. That makes the most sense if you cannot correct the auto DST change, then you only have to update twice a year at the same time you adjust the rest of your clocks.

  • 44 Posted by david_hoyt on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    Christopher Null: IntelliAdmin.com has a patch that covers Win98 & WinME at: http://www.intelliadmin.com/Downloads.htm The patch for Win2000 also covers Win NT/2000/XP/2003 All of these and other software are listed with the Freeware Downloads at the Web address listed above. I installed both without any problems. David

  • 45 Posted by asanmiguel17 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    From an IT Admin's stand point, this is the type of problem that causes all sorts of potential nightmares. Sure, it really doesn't affect users too horribly if they're off an hour; however, a good percentage of most IT shops run automated processes. In our environment, the jobs have to run at the exact time or else they will conflict with other running processes (we've tried.) This just isn't a Windoze problem either; this i----- ting us on Solaris, RedHat, HP-UX, etc. It's controlled now, thanks to vendor and 3rd party patches. It's hard to manually "point and click" as one user suggested when you've got over 6,000 users spread out through the world. Ignorance and comments like that go hand in hand...and give us IT guys job security.

Post a Comment

Sign In to Post a Comment

My Tech

Please enable your browser's cookies to activate the My Tech column.

Also on Yahoo! Tech

Computers Home Office Wi-Fi & Networking Phones & PDAs Cameras & Camcorders TV & Home Theater Portable Audio
 

Site Map | Tour | Subscribe to Yahoo! Tech

Question and Answer content at Yahoo! Tech is written by Yahoo! users at Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any Yahoo! Answers content. For more information, read the Full Disclaimer.

Opinions expressed by the Advisors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo! receives no compensation from any manufacturer or distributor nor does it compensate any Advisor for the coverage of any product or service in any Advisor's content.