One Hour Synch Error on Pocket PC

I love my HP iPAQ Pocket PC. This morning, though, for the first time ever, I noticed a strange error: despite being entered correctly on my desktop PC, appointments on my handheld were exactly one hour off.

In other words: while Outlook XP knew my doctor’s appointment was at 2:00 PM, my handheld, after synchronization, listed the appointment at 1:00 PM.

I disconnected the handheld, corrected the appointment time, and synchronized again. The result? The previously correct appointment times on my PC were shifted forward an hour. (In Outlook XP, that 2:00 PM doctor’s appointment rescheduled itself for 3:00 PM.)

I fiddled for several minutes, sliding the appointment around in both Outlook XP and Pocket Informant. No matter what I did, appointments continued to be out of whack by an hour.

Finally, I noticed my handheld PC’s clock was an hour off. When I opened the Clock application to change the time, I noticed the Pocket PC was set to Eastern Time. “Ha!” I said. “Easy fix!”

I clicked the drop-down list (currently set to GMT 5- EASTERN), spotted the entry just above the current one (GMT 6 – CENTRAL AMER), and made the change.

My appointments continued to be an hour off.

Several minutes later, I noticed my mistake. GMT 6 – CENTRAL AMER is the time setting for CENTRAL AMERICA, not the Central Time Zone in the United States of America. Central America doesn’t honor daylight savings time. The handheld knew this, so it “helped” me by shifting appointments accordingly.

I opened clock again and, this time, selected GMT 6 – CENTRAL US.

Now, all’s well.

Since I couldn’t find an article on the web recording this fix, I decided to post an antry about it on MadeByMark. Here’s hoping the information saves other folks a few minutes of precious troubleshooting time!