As we all know, Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins three weeks earlier and ends three weeks later now, due to the USA's energy policies, and our need to be in step with our largest trading partner.
This means that the automatic DST adjustment for computers now comes three weeks to late in spring, and three weeks too early in fall. Unfortunately, Microsoft has only released a freely available patch for Windows XP systems.
This, of course, means that all customers who are using Windows 95, 98, Millenium, NT4, or 2000, are all left to their own devices.
The DST fix for Windows 2000 is available for Microsoft's business customers, at a price of $4000.
The silly thing I don't get is, the patch for Windows XP is identical to the patch for Windows 2000, with the exception of it being specifically programmed to not run on Windows 2000. They're basically charging $4000 to take out a line of code that basically says "If the Windows version is 2000, exit with an error."
I don't get it, but I guess that's the way of business.
To rectify this problem, I've developed a patch for Windows 95, 98, and Millenium, and another patch for Windows NT4, and 2000.
End users or computer technicians are free to download this patch for installation on any number of computers, but you cannot misrepresent the author of the patch. In other words, give credit where credit is due, and don't claim to have developed it yourself.
Download
Daylight Savings Time (DST) Patch for Windows NT4 and Windows 2000.
Daylight Savings Time (DST) Patch for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millenium (Me).
Note: I've received some bug reports for the Windows 95/98/Me patch where the user was unable to change to the new time zone created. This bug is being investigated, and will hopefully be fixed shortly.
The NT4/2000 patch will also work on Windows XP, so if for some reason you can't, or don't want to apply Microsoft's patch - for example, you can't install Windows XP Service Pack 2 for software compatibility reasons - you can use this one to fix the problem.
Instructions
Note:This patch only works for Eastern Standard Time, because that's where most, if not all, of my customers are.
Installing either of these patches will not automatically fix the problem. There are a couple more steps beyond that.
First, of course, download the patch installer and run it by double clicking.
This will not modify your current time settings - rather, it adds a new time zone. Double click the clock on your taskbar, then click the Time Zone tab. In the drop down menu, your current setting will be "(GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)". Change this to "(GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) - 2007 and later", click OK, and you're finished.
Your system will now automatically change to and from DST at the correct time, although you may need to set the clock manually once, since you installed this patch after the DST change on March 11, 2007.