Daylight saving time (DST) ended in the US this weekend, but parts of Canada decided to ditch the biannual clock change, which created time zone errors for several Microsoft products.
The Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, along with northwestern Ontario, are now permanently on DST. Unfortunately, tools like Outlook and Exchange Online failed to recognize the change. As The Register reports, users in the affected areas are seeing the wrong time, which is bad news for those with meetings scheduled via Outlook Calendar.
Microsoft published a support page outlining its efforts to rectify the time zone errors, but the guidance mainly tells people to make the time changes manually. “Users must move to the new time zone,” Microsoft says. “Existing calendar events do not migrate automatically, and recurring meetings need additional review.” The company plans to release a tool for IT admins tomorrow “to remediate non-recurring meetings.”
Microsoft’s Power Automate Desktop, which can automate and schedule repetitive tasks, also needs a manual fix that can require affected users to set their time zone to Arizona or Bogotá, Colombia.
For Windows, Microsoft released updates in September to ensure the correct time zone was displayed. However, the support page notes: “Devices on unsupported Windows versions will not receive the time zone update.” In addition, the company is checking whether the time zone issues affect its other messaging and videoconferencing platform, Microsoft Teams.
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Microsoft isn’t alone in facing the problems. Google has also warned: “Our teams are actively rolling out updates to reflect these regional changes across our products, but this process involves a long chain of updates, and due to short notice, may not reach every user in time.” Hence, affected users might see the wrong time and need to make the change manually.
The ongoing issues prompted one Canadian user to tweet, “All this Alberta Time confusion is giving me serious Y2K vibes,” a reference to how companies everywhere had to update their IT systems because older hardware and software couldn’t recognize dates after 1999.
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Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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