Novell Issues Daylight-Saving Time Warning, Update Utility

Citing the early move to daylight-saving time's "significant" implications for corporate computing, Novell has created a software tool designed to help businesses update their systems to account for the March 11 clock change.

Novell's updated ZenWorks patch management tool will automatically flag computers on a network that are vulnerable to the time change and require a fix, possibly saving IT staffs hours of detective work.

"The implications of this federally mandated time change are significant for both corporate and government networks," Novell said in a company statement issued Thursday. "Companies across all industries face potential disruption from the new DST mandate," Novell warned.

U.S. daylight-saving time will start on March 11 this year -- three weeks earlier than usual. The change was authorized by the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Other major technology vendors are issuing patches and warning customers about the possible impact of the switch on their systems.

On Tuesday, Microsoft issued an alert noting that a fix is already built into Windows Vista and Office 2007, but warning that earlier operating systems and applications could be hit by the problem. The company has released an update for Windows XP SP2 users via its Automatic Updates service. Users need to ensure they have Auto Update enabled.

Most of Microsoft's other major products, including Outlook 2007 and its predecessors, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Visual Studio, Windows CE, and a number of others, need to be updated, the company said.

IBM is also issuing updates and fixes for a number of its products, including its disk storage systems.

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