Summer time doesn’t officially start in Europe for another two weeks, when clocks go forward one hour in the early hours of Sunday March 25.

In the US, though, they’ve started summer time early this year when clocks went forward one hour yesterday. The US change also affects the end of summertime there, which will be two weeks later this year.

If you use Microsoft software, note this:

[…] The extension of daylight-saving time by a month in the United States is causing enormous grief for some IT administrators running Microsoft software, as many of the software programs running on their users’ systems need to be individually patched to reflect the change. […] Microsoft has been warning customers that unless certain updates are applied to their computers, the time zone settings for their system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period. “In particular, you must make sure that both your Windows operating system and your calendar programs are updated,” the company said on its support site.

[…] While Windows Vista, Exchange 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 do not require any updates, a host of other products do, including Exchange Server, Outlook, SQL Server Notification Services, Office Live Meeting, Microsoft Entourage, Dynamics CRM, Windows SharePoint Services, Windows Mobile and Windows CE.

Helpful links:

• Microsoft Knowledge Base: Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center
• Daylight Saving Time – Technical Chats
• Daylight-Saving Time Change: Bigger than Y2K?