Daylight Savings Time - Neccesary Updates

It may not be Y2K all over again, but having daylight savings time start on March 11 this year could definetely goof some things up. Therefore you should take it seriously and spend an hour or two this week prepping your system(s) for... Black Sunday.

We kid, but here is the skinny.

For Home Users or Small Businesses:
You should have Microsoft Automatic Updates enabled. Ensure that this runs this week or run it manually by going to: http://update.microsoft.com.

If you are on a slow connection you can manually download the just the DST file you need for Windows XP here.

If you are not running Windows XP or are totally confused by all of the above, go here, for an interactive, step-by-step widget that will help you get everything you need.

To see if you already have the update you need, look in Add-Remove Programs in the Control Panel for Update KB931836. The best tool for checking the status of all installed windows patches is to use a third party utility. We recommend Belarc Advisor. It is free and safe. We use this tool all the time with complete confidence to build profiles of servers and other corporate installations.

For Corporate and Windows Server-Based Environments
Windows Servers will list all installed patches in the Add-Remove Programs window. Or just use Belarc to be sure.

There are a number of patches depending upon which network operating system you are running (Windows 2000 or 2003 Server) and what servcies and versions are running on them (Exchange, SQL, SharePoint). The main microsoft page on what updates are needed is here.

Generally the process goes like this:

1. Update server OS.


2. Update workstations' OS.


3. Update server programs and services

None of the server updates require a restart. We are updating most of our clients remotely this week and next.

For many users, one of the most important updates will be the Time Zone Data Update for Outlook. The client updater for Outlook is will download from this link.

Anyone running SUS or WUSUS just needs to approve the updates.

Not terribly complicated. An hour or two reading the documentation and downloading and installing patches is all you need in order to be able to fully enjoy that extra hour of bar time next week.