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Unofficial Win2K Daylight Saving Time Fix
Saturn2003a writes "Microsoft has stated that they will not be offering a patch for the new US Daylight Saving Time for Windows 2000 and earlier. Only customers with an extended support agreement can get a Hotfix from Microsoft. To get around this, IntelliAdmin has created an unofficial patch (source code provided) that will fix Daylight Saving Time on Windows 2000 and Windows NT machines."
I suppose that's one way to say, "hurry up and migrate to XP^H^HVista."
Fortunately, the corporate users with a domain will still have a DC as an authoritative time source, and can just adjust the time on one server to keep everyone else in sync.
Big! Strong! Wow! Tada-O!
This knowledge base article from Microsoft describes how to use the Time Zone Editor utility (which you can download from that page) to adjust time zone settings.
If you need to update several computers, it also describes which registry keys to export. You can then import those registry keys in a logon script or whatever.
It's not like people/companies running Win2k are SOL.
The Online Slang Dictionary
According to the article, Win2k users can use the tzedit utility to edit the timezones, ostensibly to alter when/how DST occurs. My initial impulse was to say "what bastards!" (as is often the case with M$ related silliness), but this is only slightly ameliorated by this workaround. Just roll out a bloody patch, guys.
In the country I live in DST is on a different date every year, and is based on when some
holiday happens to occur in the lunar calendar, so every year in our data centers we either
change the clocks manually, or rely on the Domain Controller on changing the time for
the servers and workstations in the domain.
And we don't complain to Microsoft for not providing us a fix for it.
-D
Well, it was passed into law in August of 2005, so it's been around for a while. Here's a link to the relevant bits. Following is the relevant changes:
It actually got quite a bit of news coverage at the time. It's been on Slashdot several times as well.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
2. net stop "windows time"
3. net time
4. net start "windows time"
done. Works as long as the locale and tz on ntp server are set correctly.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
If Microsoft's patch will cause Windows XP (or Vista) to show the WRONG time for files saved near the DST change dates/times in years past, then it is NOT A FIX. This DST change has very, very deep effects on every single program that processes ANY dates/times before 2007 in the US. Program that went back before the current DST settings have already dealt with this (or decided to be wrong), but for those of us with no data older than Windows itself, we've never had to worry about this...until now.
For example, a power company wants to compare the power usage trend for, say, 5-6pm (when a large portion of people get out of and home from work) during late March for the years 2005-2008. If their software doesn't know to account for two different DST rules, then two of those years will be comparing the wrong hour of the day. And, FWIW, I chose this example specifically because it lends itself much more to local time than to UTC.
So, to patch this correctly, Windows will need to know which set of [at least two] DST rules to use (based on the year) when translating ANY time from 'system' (i.e. UTC) to 'local'. I don't see that happening, so I don't think that even the XP and Vista users will have a working OS, at least in the sense of correct time translation from UTC to local in the USA.
This blog post explains the reason they keep local time.
It's, "Daylight Saving Time," not, "Daylight Savings Time." It's not like we're, "savings teh 1337 daylights." (daylight is singular)
At least the summary had it right.
Prove it.
But in the Solaris case, I was able to download the new timezone files from ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2007a.tar.gz and extract the contents (the only file I needed was northamerica), and ran "zic northamerica" -- all was taken care of.
There is a patch available at Here
It also fixes lots of other problems with DOS that people have struggled with.
Yes, DOS is still useable and in use today by lots of important devices.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You don't need the extended hotfix to "fix" W2K. The official free solutions from Microsoft can be found here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387
"But this one goes to 11!"
Microsoft has always had a supported way of making your own changes to your timezone settings. It comes in a program called tzedit.exe and has existed since windows 95 at least. This requires no downloads from third parties. Here's the instructions (taken from: http://www.dbaplace.com/2007-dst-change/#comments)
Every version of Windows has a "resource kit", though Microsoft only supports Win98+ so you may need to hit old download sites for those ancient versions of Windows. You can download the resource kit from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/. Download this if you do not have it already.
Once the resource kit is downloaded and installed search your disk drive for tzedit.exe and run it.
Select your timezone from the list and click edit.
You'll have two boxes "Start Day" and "End Day" change these from what they are to what they need to be for the new change.
Click Ok, then Close.
To make the settings take effect restart, or select Date/Time from the control panel, choose a different timezone, save and close then repeat selecting your correct timezone this time.
Considering MS already provides a tool that updates timezones, right back to NT4 all they're doing is not wanting to regression test on out of date systems. So tell me, are Redhat producing updates for 10 year old linux installs?
First of all, it sets the hardware clock to local time rather than GMT, so it breaks other OSs when dual-booting. Second, it puts file timestamps in local time (at least on FAT), so if you change timezones your timestamps can get screwed up. And screwed up timestamps can actually break stuff -- backups, make, etc.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz