2007 Daylight Saving Time Issue

Earlier this week I noticed that someone had posted a Window's Mobile fix for the 2007 Daylight Saving Time change that will occur earlier than usual this year in the US and Canada. I thought about posting the information at first, but then though "Why do I care, Cingular auto-updates my date/time on my phone anyway". Well, I haven't yet determined if I should care or not, but just in case, here are the details.

As part of the Energy Policy Act, Daylight Saving Time will start 3 weeks earlier and end 1 week later than usual. This means that on March 11, 2007, Daylight Saving Time will begin, instead of the regular first Sunday in April.

How does this affect you, the BlackJack smartphone owner? Well, Windows Mobile 5 (the OS) does not know about this change. Microsoft has issued a fix but they are leaving it up to the cell phone companies to distribute it. I'm not sure if any carriers have, but there is a good chance they will not. Possibly companies like Cingular are relying on the fact that they auto-update date/time on phones through their towers. Will this work? I haven't researched it enough to answer that yet.

As I type this posting, I am thinking about the problem and have come to the conclusion that this patch will probably be needed. I do not know for a fact, but I would assume that the dates and times in the calendar (and tasks) are stored in UTC. If this is the case then the patch would be needed.

So, I don't know if you are really going to need to use Microsoft's suggested fix or not. If you do, there is someone who has already put a CAB together (using Microsoft's instructions) that you simply need to copy to your BlackJack and install.

I should note that I looked in the registry of my BlackJack and cannot find the registry entry that the Microsoft fix writes to (HKLM,SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Timezones). Now this really does not matter, as the entry will simply be created in the registry; but that does bring up a question: If the entry is not already there, and this fix is not just simply updating it, then is the OS even looking for time zone info in that location?

Here are the links again:

• Microsoft: Preparing for daylight saving time changes in 2007
• Microsoft: How to configure daylight saving time for the United States and Canada in 2007 and in subsequent years on Windows Mobile-based devices
• EdgeBog Packaged Cab: Daylight Saving Time - Window Mobile Fix