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A post on the company's Microsoft Exchange Team Blog reveals that administrators who tried to set up a new Exchanger server, or even just add or configure mailboxes, were hit with an error message on 29 February.

The typically cryptic error message gave no indication that the date was the problem, stating: "The Exchange server address list service failed to respond. This could be because of an address list or email address policy configuration

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error."

In fact, Microsoft's investigations revealed, it was down to nothing more than the extra day in the month. "After investigation of this problem we have learned that this problem would occur only if you have started or restarted the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service between 12:00AM UTC, 29 Feb, 2008 and 12:00AM UTC, 1 Mar, 2008," the blog reads.

"If you are impacted by this, all that you have to do is restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service after the midnight UTC, 1 March, 2008."

The blog also states that Microsoft is working on a permanent fix for the bug, although if past history is anything to go by, Exchange administrators would be ill advised to hold their breath.

Microsoft Excel has long contained a bug that incorrectly assumes that 1900 was a leap year. Microsoft has been reluctant to fix the problem because it could cause all dates in legacy spreadsheets to move back by a day, among other problems. "Because most users do not use dates before 1 March, 1900, this problem is rare," Microsoft concludes.