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Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, Dr. Bombay Computer Column: Shedding Some Daylight on a Problem

Posted on: Thursday, 30 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Dr. Emilio Bombay, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Mar. 30--0330_bombay_03-30-2006_23_Tarrant_FT6SB7G.xml

Shedding some daylight on a problem

Dear Dr. Bombay: Since Microsoft won't fix their fix, I want someone to get the word out. On April 2, Indiana will be changing to Eastern Daylight Time for the first time in 40 years or so. Microsoft has published a fix that companies can run to automatically change everything over (support.microsoft.com/kb/914837 /en-us). The fix does not work properly. When a computer has been originally imaged to the Indiana (east) time zone, there is no box to check for automatically adjusting to daylight-saving time. The Registry key is never created. When you run their fix, it changes the computer's time zone to Eastern, but this box is not automatically checked. Essentially the time will never adjust. Microsoft tested the fix on computers that at one time or another were set to a time zone that had daylight-saving time. So the registry key is there and is checked when the fix was run. They acknowledged the problem after I pointed it out, but they do not have anyone calling them who will make it worth their while to fix it. Unfortunately too many people and companies just assume a fix from Microsoft works.

-- Hoosier Daddy

Dear Daddy: And whose fault is that? Anybody who blindly trusts Microsoft to do something right the first time ought to have his head examined. I'm surprised that anybody at Microsoft would actually admit there's a problem.

Of course, the original problem started years back, with some loonies in the Indiana General Assembly who wouldn't go along with the rest of the country when this whole daylight-time silliness started. Did they really think there wasn't going to be a problem someday? Maybe I'll just follow their example, take the battery out of my watch and set it to 5:05 p.m. That way it's always cocktail hour, I'll never be late for anything, and I'll never get older. Of course, I'd be out of step with the whole country, but I'm willing to risk that.

Individual users shouldn't worry about the April 2 change. All they need to do is to double-click on the time display in the lower right corner of the screen, select the Time Zone tab, then set the default to regular Eastern Time.

You guys working for companies who had the same disk image burned onto all your hard drives at the factory or in your shop are the ones with the problem. If they were created with the time zone set to Indiana Goofy Time from the get-go, you've got your work cut out for you.

I suppose you could go to each computer and make the change manually. Maybe you could trust your users to do it if you provided them with a lavishly illustrated, well-written set of instructions. No, on second thought, they'd just goober things up.

If you're syncing all machines to your server's time, you could simply manually change the time on that one box. Naw, too much work. Or you could edit the DaylightStart and StandardStart keys in the Registry (just search for them in Regedit, the configuration editor) to match the keys used by regular Eastern time. Add the DWORD value DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet and set it to 0 (zero). You could make one Registry patch and copy it as part of a network boot script. I couldn't get the checkbox to show up, but the value was still there after a reboot.

Hmmm. Didn't we go through a bunch of this kind of nonsense for Y2K? That turned out OK. Well, I suppose it did. I've been living in a cave in Montana since Dec. 31, 1999.

Dear Dr. Bombay: Back in the day, there was a program (DOS-based) called Laplink that would transfer your computer software and files by connecting two computers. What can be used today to transfer from computer to computer?

-- Linkless

Dear Linkless: If you're such a fan of Laplink, I don't understand why you didn't take a stroll through the software section of a computer store and pick up the Windows version. It's still around, you know. You can also download it from www.laplink.com.

The modern incarnation may be overkill for what you want to do. It's more of a complete remote-management suite these days. Look at a sister product, PCmover. Unlike the good old days of DOS, where programs pretty much consisted of one executable file, Window applications have dozens of support files and libraries or routines, not to mention required changes to your system's Registry, the mother of all configuration files.

PCmover purportedly transfers all that for you. Of course, if you had the original installation disks for your programs and manually reinstalled them, that really wouldn't be a problem unless you were lazy, would it? By the way, if you get the download, it's 10 bucks less than the physical product. That way you can be cheap and lazy, just like me.

Dear Dr. Bombay: What is the best way to clean the LCD screen on a computer if there are smudges on it? Also, can scratches on the screen be eliminated?

-- Thumbprints

Dear Thumbprints: Get a soft, dry cotton cloth and try rubbing the smudges off. You can use a small amount of alcohol (Everclear or isopropyl, whichever you have in your liquor cabinet) applied to cloth -- not the screen, unless you want to kill your equipment. Never use a paper towel or anything that's even remotely abrasive. Just go to the computer store and buy an LCD cleaning kit. They come with dry and wet patches, and if you mess the screen up with them, at least you have somebody you can sue.

As for scratches, you can find some products that claim to remove them, but they all contain abrasives, and I wouldn't trust a $900 screen to a $5 tube of goo. Next time, cut your fingernails before you poke at the screen.

-----

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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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