DST Outlook Walkthrough 1: Standalone Outlook 2003 and 2007 with Windows XP

(Updated 2/22/07)

This is DST Outlook Walkthrough 1, where we update a standalone installation of Outlook for the Daylight Savings Time change. By that, I mean an installation of Outlook that isn't on a corporate network or connected to an Exchange server. This kind of installation is what most home users have and is the easiest to deal with.

Note: You should use this walkthrough with both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. Although there seems to be some confusion on this point, in my testing, you do need to run the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook when using either version of Outlook standalone on a Windows XP machine.

This walkthrough assumes you are running on Windows XP and have not already installed the Daylight Savings Time update for Windows.

Why does this walkthrough assume you have not installed the Windows update yet? Because when you install it, items in your Outlook calendar get shifted an hour later during the expanded weeks of DST. The Outlook fix we're going to run will undo this and the times will turn out to be correct at the end of it all, but to be safe, there is one thing I would like you to do before updating Windows. That is, I would like you to print a copy of your Outlook calendar for the days of:

March 11 through April 1

October 28 through November 4

Doing this gives you a way to confirm that your Outlook calendar got updated properly for Daylight Savings Time.

Note: If you have already updated Windows, you should skip this step and update Outlook. You will have to check your schedule yourself for those weeks.

Update Windows

Now you are ready to update Windows. You can do this by going directly to the page containing the February 2007 security updates, as described on the Daylight Savings Time page, or you can visit the DST Update Guide and let it show you how. Do the Windows update, then come back here to update Outlook.

One last thing before we start. If you don't use the Outlook calendar to keep track of your schedule, and don't create tasks with reminders for specific times, you really don't need to worry about updating Outlook.

Updating Outlook 2003 or 2007

Once Windows is updated, you are ready to update Outlook. If you have any recurring appointments in your Outlook Calendar, it is easy to confirm that Windows is updated.

If you have updated Windows, but not Outlook, you will see that the times for your recurring appointments will begin one hour later between March 11 and April 1.

Here's an example. The first image is from March 10. The second is from March 17.

The appointment for March 10.

The appointment after the Windows fix.

The appointment for March 17.

The Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook, which we are about to download and install, will fix this shift.

Follow these steps to download and install the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook:

Go to the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook download page for the tool.

Click Download to download the tool. You can either save it to disk before running it or run it immediately. I chose to run it immediately.

Run the tool or Save it first. Ignore the security warnings.

Once the tool starts running, you'll need to accept the license agreement by clicking a checkbox in the bottom left corner of the window, then click Continue. After a moment, the Change Calendar Time Zone dialog box appears.

Tell the tool what to do here.

Ensure that the Update to reflect changes to Windows times zones option is selected, as well as the Move meetings you organized to the new time zone and send updates option.
The only potentially tricky part of this dialog box is the Data File field. The data file is where Outlook stores all the items you see in any Outlook view. You can normally assume the file that appears here is the correct one. If you know you have multiple data files, you can run this tool repeatedly to update all of them by selecting them in this field.

Click OK. If there are any items that need changing, the tooldisplays a dialog box like the one below. Click OK to let the tool make the changes to your Outlook data.

The tool has found an item that needs to be changed.

When it finishes its work, the dialog box changes to show that it is finished. Click OK and the update is done.

The tool has completed its work.

Confirm that the changes were successfully made by referring to the printed copy of the Calendar you made earlier, or by examining the times of appointments scheduled during the changed times. In my case, I went back to my lunch appointment with Jenn and confirmed that it was scheduled for noon again as it should have been.

And that's that for updating a standalone installation of Outlook 2003 or 2007 on Windows XP. From here you can:

Return to the top of this DST Outlook walkthrough page.

Go to the main Daylight Savings Time change page.

Go to the Living With Outlook home page.