For those people who are not aware of this, beginning from 2007, the start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time (DST) has been changed. This change was was authorized by the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 and will be coming into effect this year. Most US users of Windows operating systems pick a time zone when they first install or start their factory installed systems. A wrong DST setting could potentially be a problem for many home and office users. Even more so, for Windows servers that are set to perform certain operations at a particular time of day or week, this change could cause significant problems if left unpatched or unattended. Microsoft has posted a patch which can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388. For most Windows XP users an automatic patch was included in the latest updates from Microsoft. Users of Windows Vista need not worry as the operating system was shipped with updated software. However, those users who either don’t have the auto update feature set up or for other users who may be running other versions of Windows, this site provides useful information. Gartner has issued an advisory recommending that all companies set up enterprise-wide communications programs to let users know of potential problems. In addition, Gartner is also recommending that tech departments be staffed and be on alert on March 11 (Sunday) and March 12 (Monday) for possible problems. Of course, all these patches would only work for systems that are software upgradeable. Not for hardware with clocks and other times (remember old VCRs?). Those will not be patched and users would have to suffer during the extra weeks of DST.