[John]

I have noticed some strange behavior with custom date properties that I was
hoping someone could comment on. I have witnessed the behavior with both
Word 2003 and Word 2007.

The behavior can be witnessed with the following workflow:
1) Configure your computer so that it automatically adjusts for daylight
savings time (goto the Control Panel and select "Date and Time", in the "Date
and Time Properties" window select the "Time Zone" tab, select a time zone
where daylight savings time applies--I'm using "(GMT -5:00) Eastern Time (US
& Canada)"--then ensure that the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight
savings time changes" checkbox is checked.
2) Open Word and create a new document. Edit the document properties and
create a new date type custom property. Set the value of this property to
"1/1/2008". Save the file and close Word.
3) Change the configuration of your computer so that it no longer adjust for
daylight savings time.
4) Reopen the file you previously created and look at the properties.
Notice that your custom property now displays "12/31/2007".

I have examined the values for these properties as they are exposed by the
Office IFilter, and it appears that they are stored incorrectly. The values
of the property are exposed by the IFilter in as a Coordinated Universal Time
(UTC) value. The Eastern Time zone is normally 5 hours behind UTC, so the
UTC value of the property should be "1/1/2008 5:00 AM". Instead, the UTC
value is reported as "1/1/2008 4:00 AM". January 1st falls outside of the
daylight savings time window, so it should not be affected by the computer's
daylight savings time configuration.

Is this a bug? Or is this the expected behavior?

Thanks.