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Daylight Saving Time & Time Zone Blog
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Interim guidance for British Columbia time zone changes 2026

Naveen_Shankar's avatar
Naveen_Shankar
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Aug 07, 2026

Microsoft has made a decision about addressing the new time-related change for British Columbia.

Editor's note October 13, 2026: Microsoft has released an update to address the new time-related change for British Columbia. Please refer to British Columbia 2026 time zone update available now Ea...
Updated Oct 27, 2026
Version 7.0
OzoVei's avatar
OzoVei
Brass Contributor
Oct 02, 2026

There are multiple bugs with changing timezone on calendar events in new/web outlook:

  • Click on the combo box gives the hint text "Search for a city". Typing in "Vancouver", results in the old time zone being selected instead of the new one.
  • In Web Outlook, "Search for a city" doesn't work at all - the combo box does not accept any typing input at all.
  • The Combo Box is too small, so both the old and new time zones are cut off at "Pacific Time...". This makes it hard to tell if the correct one is selected. If you try to click in the box in order to select/scroll the text, then it just clears it and shows the "Search for a city" text instead.
  • The sort order of the combo box options doesn't make sense. The new BC time zone is not grouped together with other UTC-7 time zones.

Overall, this is incredibly confusing for users and frustrating to use even if you know exactly what you are doing. The best workaround I've come up with so far is to have users paste the text "(UTC-07:00) Pacific Time (British Columbia)" into the combo box. Trying to use the broken UI to change dozens of meetings is just way too difficult.

Hopefully Microsoft can fix the "Search for a city" mapping Vancouver to the wrong time zone ASAP. Otherwise, anyone outside of BC trying to schedule meetings on BC time is almost certain to get it wrong.

  • alexcotsalas's avatar
    alexcotsalas
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    Oct 22, 2026

    Thanks for reporting this. Two fixes are rolling out for OWA and New Outlook:

    1. Searching and choosing Vancouver will select the new time zone
    2. The time zone combo box is widened so you can see the full time zone name (or, for some very long time zones, enough to distinguish it from other time zones)

    I'm also looking into the sort order. Agree it doesn't make sense.

    • OzoVei's avatar
      OzoVei
      Brass Contributor
      Oct 22, 2026

      Excellent, thank you for taking the feedback and pushing fixes! Are the fixes rolling out now? Or do you have an estimate as to when they will be available?

      • alexcotsalas's avatar
        alexcotsalas
        Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
        Oct 22, 2026

        Ball is rolling now, but still working on ETA.

  • OzoVei's avatar
    OzoVei
    Brass Contributor
    Oct 05, 2026

    I see today that the city search now returns the correct time zone. When searching for "Vancouver" it shows "PCT" next to the search results and accepting the search result selects the new correct time zone.

    The UI bugs still remain. I have also keyboard entry not working in "new" desktop Outlook - so that is not solely a browser issue as I previously thought. Keyboard entry seems to work if the drop down arrow on the combobox is clicked, rather than just clicking in the text field.

  • as6's avatar
    as6
    Copper Contributor
    Oct 05, 2026

    The announcement was made a while back -- cannot believe that this is being worked on last minute. Super frustrating. 

    • Pianokc's avatar
      Pianokc
      Copper Contributor
      Oct 05, 2026

      I am not a tech savvy user, but I have been committed to only using Surface Laptops for the past 6 years.  However, I am super frustrated that I spent 3 days and nights trying to figure what's wrong with my clock and calendar on my laptop because my zoom account and Whatsapp account on the laptop are all messed up.  It's the wrong time showing, (it's 1 hour delayed), and calendar on zoom, it won't let me schedule any meeting because zoom cannot detect my timezone , error message non stop.   I tried everything from support articles, and cleared cache, history, uninstalled, resinstalled, and restart and etc.  This morning, my zoom meeting scheduled for 1130am said meeting was at 1030am, and it's about to start in 28 minutes, but the time was already 1102am.  I finally went to check this new time zone update that I suspected if it was the issue.  Now I cannot use automatic time zone, and I cannot use automatic time change.  I have to manually choose and manually update the time.  Now, my whatsapp is fixed. Extremely frustrating.  To clarify, the clock on my laptop display is the right time.  But all the apps connected and depends on time and date, are all wrong.