Preventing Windows clock from interfering with Outlook appts

[jmt356]

Whenever I travel to a different time zone, if I either allow my computer’s time to be changed automatically or otherwise change my time zone, Outlook changes all of my appointments up or down by the number of hours corresponding to the time difference. For example:
Suppose I am in France this week and in the US next week. I know I will have an appoint this week at 12 pm on a given day and another one at 3 pm (US time) next week, when I am in the US. What I normally do is set this week’s appointment for 12 pm and next week’s appointment for 3 pm, because when I am in the US, I will want to know what the appointment will be in my local time. I do NOT calculate that 3 pm in the US will be 9 pm in France because when I do not want to bother calculating the time difference and when I am in the US, I want to see the appointment time in US time (3 pm) rather than in France time (9 pm.).
However, when I get to the US, if my time is automatically adjusted (or if I change the time zone forward 6 hours), then Outlook will change both this week’s 12 pm appointment in France to 6 pm and next week’s 3 pm appointment in the US to 9 pm, which I do NOT want.
To get around this problem, I keep my time zone to France time, turn off the automatic update on my clock, and manually set the time forward 6 hours so that my computer thinks I am still in France, but with the wrong time. This is the only way that I have been able to prevent my Window clock from interfering with Outlook appointment times.
Is there a way to prevent this interference while still having my computer set to the correct time and time zone?

[HansV]

You can add a second time zone to Outlook, so that you can easily see and compare - for example - Eastern Standard Time and Central European Time. See Traveling between time zones.

[StuartR]

I usually ask the people I am meeting with to send me a meeting request. This automatically gets entered into the diary at the correct time, and everything works just perfectly.

[jmt356]

Is there no way to change my computer's clock and/or time zone without interfering with all of my Outlook calendar appointment times?

[StuartR]

Your Outlook calendar appointments are stored in UTC time, and displayed in local time.

If you change your time zone setting then Outlook will display the appointment in the local time, but it won't change the UTC time associated with the appointment. If instead you change the actual time on the computer, then the displayed time of your appointments would remain the same.

For example I am currently in the UK, it is now 14:18 (2:18 PM) and I have an appointment tomorrow at 11:00 UK time. If I change my time zone to Central European time then the computer will correctly show that this appointment is now at 12:00 local time. If instead I change the time on my computer to 15:18 (3:18 PM) then the appointment will still be displayed as occurring at 11:00 local time.

[jmt356]

I believe what Stuart is saying is that I can change my computer's time without interfering with my Outlook appointment times but I cannot change my computer's time zone without interfering with my Outlook appointment times.

The problem with changing the time without changing the time zone is that it puts my computer on the incorrect time. For example, if I am in the UK and then travel to the Central European time zone, by merely changing the time from 14:18 to 15:18 upon arrival to Central Europe, my computer will erroneously display that I am in the UK but with my clock set one hour ahead. While it may technically be true that it is 15:18, it is not true that it is 15:18 in the UK. Moreover, whenever I get and receive emails, they will display the wrong time. For example, if my clock is set to the UK time but one hour ahead, Outlook will display an email that I get at 15:18 while I am in Central Europe as having been received at 14:18. For whatever reason, changing the time without changing the time zone does not fool Outlook into displaying the time received to 15:18; somehow, it still knows that it is 14:18 in the time zone that I have indicated that I am in (the UK), even though I set the clock one hour ahead.

The issue with Hans' suggestion of adding a second time zone is that I have to make a judgment each time I look at an appointment and try to remember which time zone I was thinking in when I added it. For example, I might have a meeting in Paris next week at 12 pm. I would put that into my calendar while I am still in the US and write down 12 pm. When I get to Paris and change my time zone, I would have the second clock, which displays the time of the meeting as 6 pm, but I would remember to look at the US time zone for that appointment because I put it in while I was in the US; I remember--yes, the time is 12 pm local time, but because I put it in while I was in the US, it is displaying as 6 pm on my Outlook's French time zone. And then I would get accustomed to ignoring the French times and relay on the US times, except that there would then be appointments I would add while in Paris, and naturally, I would not put these in the US time zone, but in my local time zone. So, for example, if I have a 13:00 meeting, would I remember that I put that appointment in while I was in France, and therefore, it is 13:00 Paris time and not 07:00 US time, or would I follow the US time because after all, I used the US time for the 12:00 meeting as well. As you can see, this business of having two clocks can quickly become confusing unless one remembers in which time zone he intended for each appointment to be displayed at the time that each appointment was added.