Below is a piece I wrote for last week’s Sql Server PASS newsletter. The editor adjusted the title to The Times, They Are Changin’. I thought that change lost the humor I try to convey 🙂 Also, it is amazing how close Brian and I think on this one. We didn’t talk to each other, but wrote very similar posts for this subject around the same time.

In the US, Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed and signed into law in 2005. One provision of the law expanded daylight saving time period by 4 weeks, effective in 2007. As a result, computer operating system in the US needs to be patched to reflect this change. The patch is fairly simple to apply for servers, mostly in the form of registry changes. To get help on how to adjust this setting for your Windows servers, you can visit the site here.

Fortunately for Sql Server, once the underlying Windows time setting has been adjusted, there is almost no additional work to do on Sql Server. The exception is Sql Server Notification Services. Notification Services for both Sql Server 2000 and 2005 need updates to accommodate this time change. You can follow this link here for instructions.

For non-US readers out there, this change may not affect you, so let me introduce you to MSDN’s video series for Sql Server 2005 Express Edition. These are database courses delivered in video format. It looks very promising. You can get it here.