Calendar trivia
Some April Fools' Day related trivia about the Outlook calendar.
The first day you can select in Outlook’s calendar is April 1, 1601
The last day you can select in Outlook’s calendar is August 31, 4500
Why are these dates chosen? I don’t know. I do know that the entire system of Windows uses the date 01/01/1601 as a base for file dates and Active Directory uses it for logon dates, so perhaps the Outlook team had some fun with that (although putting Easter eggs in applications is no longer allowed at Microsoft)? And perhaps August 31, 4500 is Microsoft’s end-of-the-world prediction?
Some other trivia about these dates;
- April 1, 1601 was on a Sunday.
- August 31, 4500 will be on a Tuesday.
- These dates are 1058990 days apart
- or 2899 years; 4 months; 4 weeks; 2 days.
- I used the Windows 7 date calculator to calculate the above.
- Schedule a meeting on April 1, 1601 and Outlook will currently tell you that it is 21288 weeks overdue.
- There is a KB article describing an issue which exceeds the maximum date.
- There is this one and another one related to Exchange with the 01/01/1601 minimum date.
- Ironically enough, when an item doesn’t get a date assigned, Outlook will use 01/01/4501 instead, which is a date you cannot browse to.
