Daylight Saving Time: Tip for Windows 98 Users

As those of you in North America know, the "new" Daylight Saving Time dates (second Sunday in March forward, first Sunday in November back) are likely to cause much confusion for your PC. For newer versions of Windows, one can apparently download a patch to fix the problem; not so for Windows 98. In its continued push to alienate customers by abandoning all tech support for earlier platforms, Microsoft has once again left Windows 98 users to their own devices.

Happily, we're a resourceful lot. (We have to be.) So: if you're running Windows 98, here's your solution. Double-click on the time display (usually at the bottom right of your screen). The Date & Time tab of the Date/Time Properties window should come up. First, in the "time" portion of the tab (right under the clock), click and drag over the numeral representing the hour. Now click on the up arrow key to advance the hour by one. Presto! You have manually reset your clock to Daylight Time. That's Step 1.

For Step 2, click on the Time Zone tab. At the bottom is a box with a check mark that says, "automatically adjust for daylight saving time changes." Click on the check mark to make it disappear. Now click Apply, then OK. Step 2 disables your computer's proclivity to "spring forward" and "fall back" on what are now the wrong dates. So, come the first Sunday in April, your computer will not try to set its clock yet another hour ahead.

Computer hassles aside, I'm a fan of the new Daylight Saving Time. As a slow starter, I prefer the bulk of my daylight in the evening. I don't give a hoot how light it is or isn't at six a.m., because I'm asleep. That said, I'd argue we ought to take it a step further: if we're now on DST nearly eight months of the year, why bother with standard time at all?

I'll use my own time zone as an example. I live in the Eastern Time Zone (GMT -5:00). If we were to dispense with Eastern Time entirely and permanently migrate to Atlantic (Standard) Time, we'd get all the daylight we wanted year-round and never again have to fiddle with our clocks. Similarly, Central could migrate to Eastern, Mountain to Central, Pacific to Mountain, Alaskan to Pacific, and so on.

I'd write to my congressman because ultimately, that's where these decisions are made ... but I don't have one.