Microsoft has discovered once again that few things strike fear into the heart of a software engineer quite like a government deciding to fiddle with the clocks.

Parts of Canada stopped observing seasonal clock changes on November 1, leaving affected areas of British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba permanently on UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00 and UTC-05:00 respectively. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s sprawling software empire hasn’t entirely caught up.

The company has confirmed problems across a chunk of its software estate, leaving some customers facing incorrect times, broken schedules and a collection of workarounds while Redmond catches up.

Outlook users have been left with the most homework. Switching to the new Canadian time zones won’t automatically update existing calendar entries, meaning that meetings scheduled after November 1 are potentially an hour out of whack.

Microsoft advises users to change their Outlook calendar time zone, then update upcoming events and meetings to use it. For meetings involving other people, only the organizer can make the change.

Posted smugly from Arizona, where Sunday lasted 24 hours.