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."

Comments

My fix?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Zulu time.

I haven't had an issue yet.

Re:My fix?

[dsanfte]

I used to do that too, but I found all the spears and animal skins cluttered up the server room.

Re:My fix?

[radarsat1]

I use Zulu time.

Right on, brotha!

Re:My fix?

[smoker2]

Don't

throw

bloody

spears

at

me !

Re:My fix?

[tuxguy]

grandparent = joke ;)

Yeah, right

[zr-rifle]

but what about us DOS users?

Re:Yeah, right

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> but what about us DOS users?

Just put "time" and "date" commands in your autoexec.bat.

Re:Yeah, right

[0racle]

vas is dos?

Re:Yeah, right

[Aqua_boy17]

vas is dos?

I think it's from that german movie "DOS Boot".

Re:Yeah, right

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Yeah, right

[SeaFox]

I think it's from that german movie "DOS Boot".

Wasn't that film about Slashdot effect? I remember how all the hardware gets torpedoed and stops functioning for awhile.

and it's....

[celardore]

About time too!

(Sorry...couldn't resist)

Re:and it's....

[camperdave]

I think it's about time that we just split the difference, adjust the clock by half an hour, and leave it there.

Re:and it's....

[Nimey]

Better, just do away with DST altogether.

More radical, convince everyone to use UTC and do away with time zones.

Re:and it's....

[Steve001]

The problem with not adjusting the clock is that there are forces that are working to move the clock both forward and backward. In the book "Spring Forward - The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time" by Michael Downing, he covers the issue. The back cover of the book lists those who support and oppose Daylight Saving Time (DST).

Some of those in support of DST:

• Golfers
• Major League Baseball
• Barbecue industry

Some of those opposed to DST:

• Farmers
• Hollywood movie studios
• Television and radio broadcasters

Although it is said that setting the clock back (causing the sun to set one hour later by the clock) saves energy, the savings is offset by the fact that more energy is consumed by people having longer to do things that consume energy, such as driving.

As a solution to the problem, another poster suggested setting your computer to ZULU time. Expanding on that, I think the best way to handle the issue is to use ZULU time for the time, and Julian dating (counting the number of days from the beginning of the year) for the date, for the master clock in the computer. That way, instead of having to tinker with the clock and calendar during the year, all you have to do is tell the system how many days are in the year (365 or 366).

This would get rid of both the confusion with the differing number of days in the month and concerning Daylight Saving Time. The local date/time would simply be referenced from the master date/time in cases (such as autodating letters) when you need your local time/date. But all of the computers interal workings are referenced from the real date/time stored in the master clock, which is not adjusted. The local date/time could be easily adjusted via a separate setting (ala "local time/date is ZULU + 10 hours"). That could easily be set and updated as needed.

A problem I see with a fix that is created to this is that it is likely to be a short-term fix for this specific problem. If the law changes and DST is changed once again will we face the same problem? It is much like the problem with Y2K, I wonder if we will have the same problem with Y2.1K?

Re:and it's....

[mrchaotica]

As a solution to the problem, another poster suggested setting your computer to ZULU time. Expanding on that, I think the best way to handle the issue is to use ZULU time for the time, and Julian dating (counting the number of days from the beginning of the year) for the date, for the master clock in the computer. That way, instead of having to tinker with the clock and calendar during the year, all you have to do is tell the system how many days are in the year (365 or 366).

Guess what: sane operating systems (i.e., every one of them except Windows) do exactly this!

Re:and it's....

[Atryn]

Some of those in support of DST:

One major supporter that is left off your list -- K-12 Schools and Parents. Part of the time shift is to decrease the days that kids stand at the bus stop in the dark (considered dangerous) in the mornings.

Re:and it's....

[Steve001]

Atryn wrote and included with a post:

Some of those in support of DST:

One major supporter that is left off your list -- K-12 Schools and Parents. Part of the time shift is to decrease the days that kids stand at the bus stop in the dark (considered dangerous) in the mornings.

I was trying to avoid the more controversial items on the list. Parents of school-age children do appear on the list, as opponents of Daylight Saving Time (DST). In think the reason that they would oppose it is that DST would cause the sun to rise later in the morning, causing children to have to wait for the bus in the dark in the morning.

Since I'm taking a step into controversy, the list on the back of the book also included the following:

Supporter of DST:

• Richard Nixon

Opponent of DST:

• Richard Nixon

Re:and it's....

[Steve001]

mrchaotica wrote and included with a post:

As a solution to the problem, another poster suggested setting your computer to ZULU time. Expanding on that, I think the best way to handle the issue is to use ZULU time for the time, and Julian dating (counting the number of days from the beginning of the year) for the date, for the master clock in the computer. That way, instead of having to tinker with the clock and calendar during the year, all you have to do is tell the system how many days are in the year (365 or 366).

Guess what: sane operating systems (i.e., every one of them except Windows) do exactly this!

My understanding was that the Mac did a variation of this, counting the number of days from the beginning of a certain year (I think the year was 1950) and that is why a Y2K-type problem wouldn't affect the original Macs until 2048. I wasn't aware other OSes didn't have this problem.

At this point, due to the problem of Y2K there is no reason that any OS should have this problem in the future. Y2K should have been a wakeup call to deal with this problem once and for all. That an issue with dates and time exists at all now is not an encouraging sign.

Re:and it's....

[mrchaotica]

My understanding was that the Mac did a variation of this, counting the number of days from the beginning of a certain year (I think the year was 1950) and that is why a Y2K-type problem wouldn't affect the original Macs until 2048. I wasn't aware other OSes didn't have this problem.

Actually, UNIX (including OS X, AFAIK) measures the number of seconds since 1 January 1970.

Well...

[minvaren]

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.

Re:Well...

[silas_moeckel]

Are you sure? Last I knew it used sntp to send around time data thats all in UTC with the local machines converting it to local time. I could be completely off though been a long time since I was forced to run windows.

Re:Well...

[archen]

I would think it would have to be since the assumption is that machines may be in different timezones in the same domain.

Re:Well...

[TooMuchToDo]

You, Time Nazi here:

If you're running time-sensitive applications/processes, your Domain Controller should be connected to a device to pull fairly accurate time (GSM module, GPS device, etc). Also, your clients should be using NTP, not SNTP. Very important differences. Check out Wikipedia for more info about pros and cons of both protocols.

Re:Well...

[dogbertsd]

Actually, that won't work. NTP is based on UTC/GMT. Local time is calculated on the local system based on time zone and daylight saving time parameters. I have 500 Windows 2000 servers to fix, so Corporate America is definately impacted.

This is a complicated issue as well. Indiana is observing DST for the first time, but Mexico which as observed U.S. standards for DST are -not- changing, so servers in Mexico will need a new "time zone" configuration.

The Windows 2003 patch takes care of these considerations. Hopefully Microsoft buckles and releases the patch (they have one, but it's only available to those with Software Assurance and an Extended Hotfix agreement--think big money).

Hm...

[El Lobo]

Windows 2k is...lets me see 6 years old... Well Adobe just gave us a big middle finger for a bug in their Photoshop CS that is 2 years old. Their answer? Upgrade to CS2 or find a workaround. No news here folk... Ford aint giving garantee for their 2000 models cars either.

Re:Hm...

[Shakrai]

Ford aint giving garantee for their 2000 models cars either.

And Ford doesn't get my business either. 10 year / 100,000 miles. Thank you Kia and Suzuki.

And a big middle finger to Microsoft for this move.

Re:Hm...

[tarp]

This is not like Ford refusing to warranty their 2000 model cars. This would be like someone finding out that the 2000 model Ford cars speedometer malfunctions once the year hits 2007, and Ford refusing to provide a simple fix that keeps the speedometer functioning. Microsoft is way out of line for refusing to offer a patch to fix this problem.

Re:Hm...

[breser]

Nope, more like the US decided to switch to metric and people complaining that Ford won't replace their English unit speedometer with one that has more prominent markings for metric. In both cases, the product still works but external factors make it less convenient. With Ford you have to look at the smaller metric markings. With Microsoft, you have to manually update the clock for daylight savings time twice a year. Neither case is a malfunction.

Re:Hm...

[fyngyrz]

Thank you Kia and Suzuki.

Warranty - and safety - are also the reasons I went with a Kia Sportage. Manufacturer support counts for a lot, the sense that they will stand behind their product. That's also why I've been an OSX user for the last few years. Microsoft would have to make huge changes for me to go back. Apple simply does a better job. There's a bonus, too; old Windows machines make great linux-based servers. :)

Re:Hm...

[LordSkippy]

The US switching to metric? If I had mod points, I'd mod you funny for that line.

Re:Hm...

[archen]

While true to some extent this is a bit different. My understanding is that this could easily be fixed with a simple registry import - that's like what, 2kb worth of bandwidth from MS if they didn't just give a simple patch? I'd say your analogy would be more like Ford not fixing the speedometer when it was simply as easy as driving your car to a dealer and having him fix it by touching your car with a magic wand.

MS is just making this more inconvenient to "push" people to newer systems. Win2k is still under extended support until 2010 after all.

Re:Hm...

[BlackSnake112]

Ford just replaced a bunch of parts on their dime on my 1998 explorer. 130,000 miles (and counting). I had the 100,000 extended warrentee and never used :(

Re:Hm...

[klossner]

you have to manually update the clock for daylight savings time twice a year. Four times a year.

Re:Hm...

[CrazedWalrus]

Thank you Kia and Suzuki.

Warranty - and safety - are also the reasons I went with a Kia Sportage. Manufacturer support counts for a lot, the sense that they will stand behind their product. That's also why I've been an OSX user for the last few years. Microsoft would have to make huge changes for me to go back. Apple simply does a better job. There's a bonus, too; old Windows machines make great linux-based servers. :)

I used to own only American cars (one Chevy and two Pontiacs ('93 and '99). The Chevy (Lumina) transmission finally quit at like 260k miles, and I didn't see a point in fixing it (but damn, I loved that car!). The two Grand Am's were alright, but nothing to write home about. After having to towel out my last Pontiac every time it rained, I was finally in a position to spend a little more on a Honda, and it'll take a lot to get me to go back to American cars. I've even gotten a new second Honda so my wife doesn't need to drive me to work.

The handling and generally more "solid" feel of the Hondas compared to the GM cars is out of this world. The American cars always had the stupidest shit that broke (the window and lock buttons, cabin lightbulb socket...), and good luck getting THAT fixed after warranty. And that brings me to the point of this story, and to how it relates to your comment.

My first Honda is a Pilot. It sat in the driveway for a while when gas was $3+/gallon, and the disc brakes developed surface rust. When time came for my inspection, the Honda shop replaced EVERY DISC (and a few other little things) for free -- even though it was out of warranty. The Honda dealer stood behind the car even though I bought it used from a Nissan dealer. I can't tell you how shocked I was when they told me that they wouldn't charge me for the parts and labor!

They stood behind their product, even when they didn't have to. They went above and beyond their obligations (none) to me. I understand that every product has trouble once in a while, but when it does, I want the producer to stand behind it and make it right. Honda has done that for me, and has probably gotten a customer for life.

Detroit found out the hard way that customer relationships are important, and that "Buy American" only goes so far. I'm sure these companies will come back in a few years once they get their act together, but I expect the Asian cars to eat their collective lunches for a while until they figure it out. I think Microsoft is in for a schooling in this regard as well.

Re:Hm...

[minion]

Nope, more like the US decided to switch to metric and people complaining that Ford won't replace their English unit speedometer with one that has more prominent markings for metric. In both cases, the product still works but external factors make it less convenient. With Ford you have to look at the smaller metric markings. With Microsoft, you have to manually update the clock for daylight savings time twice a year. Neither case is a malfunction.
 
But the big picture here isn't being seen.
 
With Ford, you can replace the speedometer yourself if you choose. Windows (being closed source) doesn't give you that opportunity.

Re:Hm...

[jank1887]

The U. S. has been "metric" since 1866. Reference

Re:Hm...

[breser]

And you're saying that in reply to an article about an unofficial fix for it?

Re:Hm...

[breser]

You have a point. My analogy was only to point out the flaw in referring to this as some sort of flaw in design. It's not so much a flaw in design as it is external forces making something obsolete. Obviously, software is much simpler and cheaper to fix than hardware (automobiles). No analogy is perfect and almost every analogy is designed to demonstrate a point and falls down outside those constraints.

I don't deny that Microsoft has ulterior motives for withholding the fix to the public.

Re:Hm...

[Total_Wimp]

Well put. Although technically you can update this particular issue, as evidenced by the 3rd party patch, in many other cases you couldn't. This is a major benefit of the open source community. As long as there are significant numbers of users, there will be patches to take care of the important issues.

I know MS uses issues like this to push upgrades and to reduce their costs. I know that opening up their Win2K source would the equivalent of opening up lots of XP code, because the base is so similar. Having a vested interest in the status quo, it's highly unlikely they'd open up Win2K source. But it would be awfully nice from a user perspective if they'd allow a third party to take over development and distribution of patches and upgrades to their old OSs. Win2K is a clean, fast and reliable OS. If there was third party support, many businesses could continue to make use of it for some time to come.

TW

Re:Hm...

[breser]

Only if you're not smart enough to turn off the automatic feature. There is a checkbox to turn it off.

Re:Hm...

[triffid_98]

This would be like finding out that Ford refuses to sell me a part for the 1998 model Ford car I own...which has already happened to me. Fortunately I was able to find a used replacement at wrecker.

Whether it's Ford or Microsoft, it boils down to the same thing...planned obsolescence.

This would be like someone finding out that the 2000 model Ford cars speedometer malfunctions once the year hits 2007, and Ford refusing to provide a simple fix that keeps the speedometer functioning.

Re:Hm...

[imemyself]

How many releases back is Apple still providing updates for? I don't know off the top of my head, but given how quickly they drop support for older versions of OS X for their applications, I would be genuinely suprised if Apple is still providing new update for Mac OS X 10.1, which was released in 2001 - over a year after Windows 2000 was released. I'm not saying that MS shouldn't be making this patch generally available, but its sort of ironic that you bring up one of the company's that has the worst backwards compatibility and long term support in the industrly.

Re:Hm...

[ray-auch]

well, NASA just has at least... http://www.space.com/news/070108_moon_metric.html

Re:Hm...

[tompaulco]

I just changed the oil on my GMC Safari and my Lexus ES330. When undoing the oil plug on the Safari, I found that the 3/8 was too small, and the 7/16 too big. Turned out it needed a metric wrench. (I forget the exact size)
However, the 1/2" was the perfect size for the plug.
My theory is that the U.S. Companies are putting more metric stuff on their cars in order to appear to be complying with world standards. While the Japanese companies are using imperial units in order to try to curry favor with U.S. customers.

Re:Hm...

[tarp]

I've worked on many Nissan, Toyota, and Mazda cars and everything is metric in those cars.

The 1/2 inch may have just happened to fit because it needed a 13 mm socket. 1/2 inch is 12.7 mm which is close enough..

clocks

[erbbysam]

Think of the millions of clocks worldwide with automated systems b/c there authors didn't think that daylight savings time would change... sorta reminds me of something I saw in a "How not to program" book "don't set pi as a constant, you might have to update it".
I work for a large clock company and there sending out many (20+) people throughout the country to reprogram the clock controllers so that there DST tables can be automatically updated in the future, nothing like more summertime :D.

Re:clocks

[Anonymous Coward]

there: a place

they're: a contraction of "they" and "are"

their: possessive adjective, used to indicate ownership

You're post is painful to read.

(The previous line is ironic...)

Re:clocks

[Klinky]

Wouldn't setting Pi as a public constant be the smart thing to do? Then you just have to change a single line of code to update the value of Pi. If you went through your code and just used the value "3.14" instead of the constant 'Pi', I could see that as a way not to program.

Re:clocks

[empaler]

Now that is funny. I laughed. They'res not enough grammer nazis on /.

Re:clocks

[Watson Azfor]

Thank-you. I've been wanting to say that for a very long time but never bothered.

• Yore

• Your

You're my hero.

Re:clocks

[MindStalker]

I think the idea is set it in a configuration file. Still stupid, but the point was don't set in hard code something that might change. Most industries don't have a capability to recompile code.

Re:clocks

[Rob the Bold]

Think of the millions of clocks worldwide with automated systems b/c there authors didn't think that daylight savings time would change...

No embedded system I worked on in the years Win2K was being developed had a non-configurable DST setting. DST was changed in '86 and in several previous decades. There is no good reason to assume that a legislative mandate is eternal, unlike universal math constants . . .

sorta reminds me of something I saw in a "How not to program" book "don't set pi as a constant, you might have to update it".

WTF? Make it user-configurable so fundamentalists can set pi=3?

Re:clocks

[Iamthefallen]

WTF? Make it user-configurable so fundamentalists can set pi=3?

In my company we use pi=7.36.

But we also work with really BIG circles.

Re:clocks

[miro f]

how often does pi change? I remember back in the days when pi was 3.13, but dammit they swore that it wouldn't be changed again!

Re:clocks

[that this is not und]

Your my hero

What about my my hero??

Re:clocks

[that this is not und]

The most accurate practical integer expression for pi is 355/113. This is even easy to remember 'one one three under three five five' is a pretty obvious pattern. This expresses pi to six places past the decimal place. It's essentally an accurate enough approximation for any common use.

I'm surprised how few people use this fraction in their calculations and formulas.

Re:clocks

[MindStalker]

It doesn't but if your application goes from constructing round swimming pools to round oceans (stupid example) you might want to change pi from 3.14 to 3.1415926 or even more.

Re:clocks

[richlv]

a-hha. crop circle origins discovered.

It's not like there are no other options

[WalterGR]

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.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[Atzanteol]

Grammar tip: "Effect" is a verb. "Affect" is a noun.

Slashdot has enough trouble with grammar without you confusing things. :-P

They can each be both, but the typical cases are "affect" as a verb, and "effect" as a noun. Linky.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[Hognoxious]

We should think of a witty name for the situation where someone postulates something, then supports it with a link that directly contradicts it.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[ibebanging]

No kidding, It took me a total of 30 minutes to write a vbscript to change the keys. Besides, MS still provides security patches for Windows 2000, just not hotfixes for events not under their control - Energy Act 2005.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[Atzanteol]

Eh? From the first link in the google search I linked to:

"Affect" is usually a verb meaning "to influence".

...

"Effect" is usually a noun meaning "result".

There is a noun meaning for "affect" and a verb meaning for "effect", but they're uncommon. So you go ahead and come up with your clever term, and I'll come up with one for when one uses it inappropriately.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[magicchex]

Um, I checked the first 3 links which all supported what he (truthfully) stated.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[bigdavex]

You are right. Let's call it a Hognocism.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[maxume]

Cause and affect!

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[denttford]

The verb meaning for effect (to bring about, accomplish, produce - commonly used in the phrase "to effect change") is hardly uncommon in literature aimed at people with at least a high school education - though perhaps that literature itself is uncommon. While an 8th grade standard is typically used when writing for the general population, papers like the NY Times and Wall St. Journal - often the target of links from Slashdot articles - are written to a higher level and pointing out that effect is a verb is not irrelevant to readers of this site, some of whom are not native speakers.

Affect as a noun is a fairly technical term, restricted to academic and psychological literature, and while I would never argue against having more knowledge, it can be safely forgotten until needed.

It's my date in a box

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1: Kick users off your box
Step 2: Change the time on your box
Step 3: Make her open the box.

It's my date in a box. Date in a box bay-beh.

Re:It's my date in a box

[multisync]

I wasn't going to even watch that SNL because I wasn't too excited about JT as host and musical guest. Glad I did, it was one of the funniest shows I've seen in a while, and Dick in a box was hilarious!

Not Entirely Stuck

[Cygfrydd]

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.

I've got a fix

[JerkyBoy]

Don't do the new Daylight Savings Time. It will cost more to implement than the "energy" it is supposed to save. It will probably cripple parts of our infrastructure when it is implemented.

Re:I've got a fix

[CyberLord Seven]

Daylight Savings Time was originally sold as a method to allow children to travel to school in the safety of daylight. There is not much you can do about that during the Fall and Winter months when the day is so short, but you can adjust the clocks to help children during the Spring and Summer months.

It had nothing to do with energy until...well, that's another topic.

Re:I've got a fix

[jandrese]

Uh, you have that backwards. Daylight savings time was developed during wartime to conserve on energy by moving the daylight back towards the end of the day (people liked getting up late and staying up past dark back then too). So you might be thinking to yourself, that sounds great, why don't we do that all year long? The answer is the kids. We turn daylight savings time off in the winter because otherwise the kids have to go to school in the dark when the days grow short.

Think about it, most kids go to school pretty early in the morning, but get off in the mid afternoon. Shifting the daylight back certainly doesn't help them go to school in any more light, and there was never a problem on the other end unless you live very far North (in which case you're SOL anyway).

Re:I've got a fix

[Waffle Iron]

Get up earlier (or later) and all is solved.

Since very few people's work or school schedules would change, the extra time in the morning would be a uselessly short interval with a looming workday ahead of it. Plus, in the real world, only maniacs get up before they absolutely have to.

You're getting ~100 extra hours of real-world useful daylight time in exchange for spending 3 minutes per year setting your clocks. It's a net benefit. A lot of people seem to love making contrarian complaints about DST, but it's really making a mountain out of a molehill.

Re:I've got a fix

[drinkypoo]

You're getting ~100 extra hours of real-world useful daylight time in exchange for spending 3 minutes per year setting your clocks.

I think you missed some very basic realities, like the fact that the sun is shining no matter what time the clock says it is.

Why even set the time back and forth? Why deal with all that? There is definitely substantial lost productivity around the time of the switch. Why not just have winter hours? Is that really so complicated? I seem to have noticed many businesses which seem to have them and it works out fine for them.

Re:I've got a fix

[stile99]

That might actually work. It's not like the 'law' setting when DST starts and ends has any real teeth.

What are they going to do if you break the speeding laws in this country*? Pull you over, give you a ticket.

What are they going to do if you break the tax laws in this country*? Lock you away.

What are they going to do if you break the time laws in this country*? Not a bloody thing.

*For purposes of this discussion, 'this country' means the United States of America.

Re:I've got a fix

[ender-]

We turn daylight savings time off in the winter because otherwise the kids have to go to school in the dark when the days grow short.


Wouldn't it have been simpler to change the starting time of school back an hour? I've always found this reasoning to be retarded. Not that I should expect any better from our government.

Re:I've got a fix

[Waffle Iron]

Why not just have winter hours?

That's all DST is: consistently applied winter hours. It's a lot simpler than trying to remember individual different winter hour times for each of hundreds of businesses.

Re:I've got a fix

[Rob the Bold]

All daylight savings time is and always has been retarded. Who cares what time something happens? Get up earlier (or later) and all is solved

A: Do not take away my daylight.

B: Definitely do not tell me to get up earlier. I guarantee that I am way crankier in the morning than you.

Re:I've got a fix

[ender-]

DST was actually invented to give farmers an extra hour of daylight to harvest their crops. It's been around super long (think before lights on tractors :-P) I have trouble believing this. I know it's the usual explanation, but really, did the farmers CARE what *time* it was when they got up to do their work? They got up before sunrise, and went out to work once it was light enough, regardless of what time it was. When it started getting dark, they stopped working, went home, ate dinner and went to bed.

There was certainly no extra daylight created by arbitrarily resetting the time on everyone's clock.

Re:I've got a fix

[evilviper]

So you might be thinking to yourself, that sounds great, why don't we do that all year long?

Because then it wouldn't be DST, it would just be TIME.
It would completely move us off the high-noon (sun) standard.
You'd have a greater chance of getting up in the dark half the year, eliminating much of the benefits.
And everyone would sooner or later just shift their schedules by 1 hour, completely eliminating any benefit at all.

Re:I've got a fix

[rmrfstar]

What are they going to do if you break the time laws in this country*? Not a bloody thing. I am more worried about the time laws of the universe. You don't want become your own grandfather.

Re:I've got a fix

[jandrese]

But then the kids would have different schedules from the adults. Presumably parents plan their morning around getting their kids off to school while they go to work (Remember this is wartime, so even in the 40s there were a lot of single parent households with a working parent) and making them rejigger their schedule twice a year is probably considered harder than making all of us change our clocks.

Ok, I'm talking out of my ass here. I really have no idea why.

Re:I've got a fix

[ancientt]

What exactly is so hard about changing a schedule? Wouldn't it make more sense to change schedules than to try to much about with the time?

Re:I've got a fix

[evilviper]

What exactly is so hard about changing a schedule?

Getting hundreds of thousands of people to change their schedule by an hour at exactly the same time...

Wouldn't it make more sense to change schedules than to try to much about with the time?

No, no it wouldn't.

Re:I've got a fix

[ancientt]

uh-huh!

Really, I guess I should be more detailed if I want to avoid responses like this. Of course just disagreeing is fun sometimes, but the brilliant argument of "no, you're wrong" is a little silly.

The point of my post is first just to point out that changing a schedule is easier precisely because you don't need everyone do it. Those that want a different schedule at a different time of the year can have it, and those who prefer not to have their schedule change don't change it. It's sort of a freedom of choice thing.

The second point I'd like to make is that it is absurd to have a changing schedule. As far as I can tell, most people I've asked hate the change but go along with it because they have to and rarely think about it. People I've asked usually seem surprised to even realize that they might have any other option. Personally I've lived where people exercise that choice. Parts of Indiana do, other parts don't. It is a mess, but no more a mess than the rest of the country deals with, and causes suprisingly few problems.

Finally, the underlying absurdity that I thought would be more evident is "mucking about with time" as a solution. The same number of hours pass every day but somehow having a government official standard change twice a year, and maybe unpredictably every few decades, seems just the height of both arrogence and ignorance.

Re:I've got a fix

[evilviper]

Those that want a different schedule at a different time of the year can have it, and those who prefer not to have their schedule change don't change it. It's sort of a freedom of choice thing.

Daylight savings time isn't about people waking up earlier... It's about people being about to DO THINGS 1 hour earlier.

You can't start work earlier unless you know the other companies/supplier you depend on are going to be starting work earlier, as well. And with everything being interconnected, work hours would become lowest-common-denominator, very quickly leading to no-one EVER changing their schedules.

But hey, by your argument, you can just choose to sleep an hour later, and completely nullify daylight savings times. Right???

Finally, the underlying absurdity that I thought would be more evident is "mucking about with time" as a solution.

You could make the same complaints about time zones. Both serve a very real purpose.

Re:GMT

[eln]

I have all my clocks set to Metric Time.

Remember this moment, people: 80 past 2 on April 47th, the moment Microsoft finally kicked Windows 2000 to the curb.

DST in some countries changes every year...

[random_dg]

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

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[multisync]

And we don't complain to Microsoft for not providing us a fix for it.

The thing is, Microsoft has provided a fix, but only to customers with Extended Support.

I don't know if there is some technical reason why Microsoft is unable to simply make it available to everyone on the Windows Update website, but I suspect this is simply another opportunity for them to keep the old forced-upgrade treadmill running.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[MindStalker]

Its become a common thing for MS to do lately. If there is a fix that only affects a handful of customers they will NOT release it publicly. You either have to get a support contract or call their support line and pay for the call. Its quite sickening, especially for a near monopoly organization. I've seen a number of updates on their website that would be nice to have but I'm not going to call them to get it...

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[element-o.p.]

And I'll bet when you were a kid, you walked to school in 10-foot-deep (3-meter-deep) snow, uphill, both ways...and you liked it, right? <grin>

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[MindStalker]

Yes, there are a bunch of unnessesary patches on MS's support website that require you call support to get. Either way MS has already spent the programming time neccesary to fix this problem, so its not like its costing MS money to provide the general public with this patch. They are just trying to force upgrades.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[gad_zuki!]

Running tzedit.exe isnt that difficult.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[multisync]

Running tzedit.exe isnt that difficult.

Neither is making a patch you already have available to everyone on your update site.

My parents are not going to run tzedit.exe no matter how easy it is. They could probably change the date and time on their computer manually, but will be frustrated when the OS changes it again on the wrong day because it doesn't know any better.

I'm sure someone in marketing at Microsoft thinks frustrating their less technically inclined customers is a good way to encourage them to "upgrade" to Vista. I'm thinking it's a good way to encourage people to upgrade to something else.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[gad_zuki!]

Its not marketing. MS doesnt support 2000 anymore except security patches until 2010. This is a seven+ year old product, so lets not pretend this is absurd. Does apple still support OS9? Its pretty standard for the industry. Theyre choosing not to invest time and money into testing this patch for all their flavors of 2000. Why would a monopolist care for your parents to upgrade? Theyre most likely getting vista with their next PC.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[multisync]

Does apple still support OS9?

Apparently

This is a seven+ year old product, so lets not pretend this is absurd.

You got me there; in today's "disposable society," seven years is like a lifetime! Would it surprise you to learn my parents are still using the television they bought 20+ years ago?

Theyre choosing not to invest time and money into testing this patch for all their flavors of 2000

Who are they, Baskin Robbins? How much time and money would it take to test a patch they've already developed against their own code, regardless of how many flavours they have? Contrast that against how much good will is lost telling customers "Sure we have a patch that will prevent the time from being changed on the wrong date, but you'll need to purchase an extended support contract to get access to it."

Theyre most likely getting vista with their next PC.

Well, no, if they end up with another PC it will be one I assembled for them and I'm pretty sure I will not be putting Vista on it, but I get your point. And you're sort of making my point: if we make it a pain in the ass to continue to use what you've already paid for (and are probably still happy with) maybe you'll trash that and buy something new.

We better hurry up and colonize the moon - we're going to need it for a landfill.

So, the Y2K problem finally shows up

[SpaceLifeForm]

I knew it was just a matter of time.

Re:So, the Y2K problem finally shows up

[phall]

Hey, lets start windows legacy project.

Why the 3rd party patch?

[TubeSteak]

Only customers with an extended support agreement can get a Hotfix from Microsoft.

Unless this MS Hotfix is somehow tagged or customized... wouldn't we only need one extended support holder to put the patch out on the internets?

Re:Why the 3rd party patch?

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Yes, but if you aren't going to respect the Microsoft license and you are going to trust random programs you download, why stop there? Just download a cracked XP or Vista...

There IS an official fix

[slughead]

Direct from M$:

Move to Arizona, Hawaii, or anywhere outside the US.

Re:There IS an official fix

[PhotoJim]

Sorry to break it to you, but most of Canada observes DST too. But not us here in Saskatchewan. Too bad I don't still use NT or 2000. :)

Re:There IS an official fix

[slughead]

Sorry to break it to you, but most of Canada observes DST too. But not us here in Saskatchewan. Too bad I don't still use NT or 2000. :)

Yeah but who cares about Canada?

All tucked away down there...

Re:There IS an official fix

[Ichijo]

Or just live on GMT/UTC time. If the Australians can have their winter in the middle of summer, then Californians can have their lunch at dinnertime.

Re:There IS an official fix

[wonkobeeblebrox]

> Move to Arizona, Hawaii, or anywhere outside the US.

Absolutley not!

Yes, as an Arizonan, we know that we live in a great place, and yes, we know that we're now the US's fastest growing state, and yes, we know that we have over 330 days of sunshine a year, and yes, we know that lots of folks have now figured out that there's a lot more to do out here in the nation's 5th biggest city (Phoenix) than play "catch rattlesnakes". Yes, there may even be a relic dueling law still technically on the books (not sure of that, but I heard a rumor the other day...).

Yes, we further know that not observing DST makes our lives easier and better and more practical. For starters, we in the arid desert do not need to conserve daylight; we have plenty as is. Secondly, not observing DST gives us more usable hours during the day. You see, it is coolest just before sunrise (the Earth radiates heat all night), so not delaying sunrise means that the sun comes up an hour early. Sometimes as early as 450AM. This means you can be out and about at 5AM _doing_stuff_, when it is still cool out during the summertime. Likewise, the fact that the sun rises an hour earlier means that it sets an hour earlier, which means that the desert starts cooling an hour earlier, which means that you can go out and enjoy the nice temps right before bedtime as well....

But please, we know all that. There is, in-fact, method to our (sun-induced) madness. Don't flock here, though. You'll clog up traffic. ;-)

True legacy

[TheSHAD0W]

I know many people who simply can't afford new PCs are are stuck running Windows 95 & 98. Is there any way to correct these? (Aside from manually tweaking the clock.)

Re:True legacy

[sh0dan]

I don't think tweaking the clock will be one of their biggest problems.

Re:True legacy

[Rovastar]

RTFA ================ All versions of Windows can be manually updated using the tzedit.exe utility or other techniques documented in Knowledge Base article 914387 and similar articles for other countries, which is the preferred method of remediation for any product outside of Mainstream Support. ================ It really isn't a problem it the util is very easy to use. You can even put their own home town in for them.

Re:True legacy

[PhxBlue]

I know many people who simply can't afford new PCs are are stuck running Windows 95 & 98. Is there any way to correct these? (Aside from manually tweaking the clock.)

Yes. Yes, there is.

MS Entourage 2004 on OS X has same problem.

[vertinox]

Even with the latest 11.3.2 patch, all meetings made through March through April are one hour wrong.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=924606

And as always their glorious status of this bug:

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available. Which leaves many people who use Entourage in the corporate environment out to dry.

Re:MS Entourage 2004 on OS X has same problem.

[lfrancis]

Seems to work for me in 11.3.3, which I think was released this week.

You know...

[AltGrendel]

...this is probably going to screw up all those bot-nets.

Re:You know...

[kasperd]

...this is probably going to screw up all those bot-nets.

Why? A good botnet shouldn't rely on the clock of the bots. In fact it relies on the bots being machines with clueless administrators. So it would rely on as little as possible of the setup of the machine it is running on. It is not like the local clock is the best or only way to know what time it is, and botnet could work even without knowing what time it is.

Re:You know...

[Brian Gordon]

What we have to worry about is data bombs poorly written by paranoid programmers who check in every hour every day..

Re:You know...

[AltGrendel]

Good point, hadn't thought of that.

Re:You know...

[Sloppy]

Does that mean I'll get my spam an hour early, or an hour late?

What about XP?

[MyNameIsEarl]

Any word on a fix or lack of for XP, or has this already been patched in a previous update?

New Daylight Savings Time rules?

[Eggplant62]

News to me. Got links or references to share on that? If it hadn't been for this story, I'd have not known about that, thanks.

Re:New Daylight Savings Time rules?

[gstoddart]

News to me. Got links or references to share on that? If it hadn't been for this story, I'd have not known about that, thanks.

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:

* In 2006, DST will begin at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April (April 2, 2006) and Standard Time will begin at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October (October 29, 2006), as under the current rules.

        * However, beginning in 2007, DST will begin at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March (March 11, 2007) and Standard Time will begin at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November (November 4, 2007).

It actually got quite a bit of news coverage at the time. It's been on Slashdot several times as well.

Cheers

Re:New Daylight Savings Time rules?

[DeadCatX2]

So...the only thing that changed is what day we do jump forward/fall back, and that's it?

Re:New Daylight Savings Time rules?

[14erCleaner]

That's right used to be "Spring forward, Fall back". Now it's "Late Winter forward, Fall Back".

Re:"Only" 1Mb

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Hey - remember when you could do some trivial data changes in a few lines of code and a 1K executable? Or am I just old?

When was the last time you saw a 1K executable on Windows? The only one I can think of is the bootloader.

It's For The Customer!

[blueZhift]

Even though Microsoft may be within their rights to not support a 6 year old OS, it would be a good idea for them to roll out a patch for an annoyance like the DST change. It would be a sign of good will to past and hopefully future customers, and it just plain looks bad for unofficial sources to be offering patches for Windows. Even if the OS has gone past end of life, the Windows brand is Microsoft's bread and butter. They really can't just sit back and let anyone offer up patches for it. Besides, these aren't blue haired grandmas running Windows 2K. Some of these people/companies might just buy something if you treat them right.

Re:It's For The Customer!

[ocbwilg]

Even though Microsoft may be within their rights to not support a 6 year old OS, it would be a good idea for them to roll out a patch for an annoyance like the DST change. It would be a sign of good will to past and hopefully future customers, and it just plain looks bad for unofficial sources to be offering patches for Windows. Even if the OS has gone past end of life, the Windows brand is Microsoft's bread and butter. They really can't just sit back and let anyone offer up patches for it. Besides, these aren't blue haired grandmas running Windows 2K. Some of these people/companies might just buy something if you treat them right.

The funny thing is that they have already very nearly provided a patch. They have a freely downloadable tool called TXEDIT that will allow you to manually make the change to your system. Problem solved. If you have multiple computers to update, they provide instructions for exporting the relevant registry keys which can then be imported into the other systems. If you have a lot of PCs to upgrade they have provide scripts that will automatically apply the update to all of the systems within a domain. What more could you want from them?

Full details are here.

Win2k

[QueePWNzor]

Win2k was the best MS OS ever. But it's too bad that they're trying to eliminate it, because they want the $$ of XP/Vista. It's good to know that others are trying to stop Microsoft from annoying all who do not pay them. I wonder what Gates thinks of this; extended support costs money, and he hates others stopping him from getting it. Especially if it has source code attached.

Re:Win2k

[Chacham]

Win2k was the best MS OS ever.

Actually, i think 3.51 takes the cake. It was a solid machine, and was the first OS with the new interface (if installed from the CD as the "experimental" interface.)

Re:Win2k

[jandrese]

3.51 had serious hardware support issues that prevent it from taking the top spot in my book.

Re:Win2k

[Chacham]

Such as?

I used it at home for a while, and came into it here and there as a server. I guess i didn't try too much to have any issues.

Re:Win2k

[flibuste]

Such as SCSI or RAID support, OEM sound cards that are not Creative, any kind of graphic card (starting with the dreaded S3-equipped ones)...and more?

Re:Win2k

[Chacham]

Such as SCSI or RAID support, OEM sound cards that are not Creative, any kind of graphic card (starting with the dreaded S3-equipped ones)...and more?

Not sure about SCSI, but i never had iussues with sound and video. Plus, as a server, those are unrequired, which is what i think 3.51 was aimed at.

Re:Win2k

[jandrese]

But that's exactly what I'm talking about. "It's for a server so you're going to be buying server cards" is exactly the problem it had. If you wanted to install a fancier graphics card you were SOL. Sound cards were a nightmare too. Even network cards were hit or miss on the stupid thing. One might have an argument that it was the best ever Microsoft Server OS, but to say it was the best version of Windows is too much IMHO.

Re:Win2k

[Chacham]

One might have an argument that it was the best ever Microsoft Server OS

Which i do. :)

but to say it was the best version of Windows is too much IMHO.

I guess it depends what Windows is being used for.

For gaming, perhaps not. For stability, it did wonders.

Third Party Solutions?

[KenAndCorey]

We have been fighting with this Daylight Saving Time issue on Windows for our application over the past couple weeks. We are now using the Dynamic Time Zones as outlined by Microsoft and it is working fine. It works for 2004 and forward, but isn't so good for historical data.

I've been trying to find a third-party solutions that has historical information and will nicely plug into our C#2.0/SQL Server 2005 application but I've come up blank. Lots of solutions for Linux and C++, but nothing much for C#. Our application is world-wide, so a north-america-only solution will not work.

If you have solved these issues in C# and/or SQL Server, can you please give me your suggestions.

Ken

Your analogy is flawed

[paladinwannabe2]

It's more like the federal government declaring that a mile is now exactly 1.6 km, instead of 1.609344km. It's not Ford's fault that the definition of a mile has changed- they didn't issue faulty speedometers, the government changed things on them long after their speedometers were built, installed, and sold.

Re:"Only" 1Mb

[Kalriath]

Oh, you are NOT talking about NTLDR... (250KB)

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[pixelpusher220]

I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.

who cares?

[cashman73]

I live in Arizona, you insensitive clod!

Use UTC, RealTimeIsUniversal=1

[GodWasAnAlien]

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/mswish/ut-rtc.html

To tell Win2K that the hardware clock is UTC,
Set:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInfo rmation\RealTimeIsUniversal

Assuming that the hardware clock is local time is plainly a bad idea, and this bug is
unfixed in all versions of Windows.

"2006-07-04: Various Microsoft Windows Vista beta testers have told me that this next-generation operating system still is not capable of running the CMOS clock in UTC. If you are a Microsoft Vista beta tester, please use the opportunity to report this problem to Microsoft. Urge them to at least fully support the RealTimeIsUniversal=1 registry setting that is already partially implemented."

The timezone should only affect clock display, not the machine behavior.

Re:Use UTC, RealTimeIsUniversal=1

[Sexy Commando]

This blog post explains the reason they keep local time.

Re:Use UTC, RealTimeIsUniversal=1

[GodWasAnAlien]

1. Compatibility with DOS and Windows 95.
Not really a reason. The RealTimeIsUniversal=0 setting could be preserved when upgrading a system.
There is no real reason to have it be default on a new system.

2. Avoid confusing the novice user in BIOS.
Novice users editing BIOS settings?
Of course, the BIOS could have a timezone setting as well.

Re:Use UTC, RealTimeIsUniversal=1

[Retardican]

Those are some lazy excuses, not real reasons. For example, OSX runs UTC on the CMOS clock, but users never notice, and old applications didn't break (too much).

The real reasons are these:
1. Microsoft would be consistently wrong rather than correct and break things.
2. GetSystemTime() returns UTC. In the past, it didn't know about UTC. And many programmers who used it didn't either. See 1.

Not only in the US...

[Bora Horza Gobuchol]

It's important to note that the change to US daylight savings time does not only affect the US. Canada has changed its daylight savings to match the US, due to the amount of trade that takes place between the two countries. It's not clear if Canada is addressed in the IntelliAdmin patch - it appears localised.

Re:Not only in the US...

[freeweed]

Canada shares mostly the same time zones as the US, so we're *mostly* covered by this patch. There's nothing country-specific (other than some variable names) that I can see.

However, here are the time zones it covers:

It updates Daylight Saving Time (Yes it is Saving, not Savings) in these time zones:

-Alaska Standard Time Zone
-Central Standard Time Zone
-Eastern Standard Time Zone
-Mountain Standard Time Zone
-Pacific Standard Time Zone


Notably absent are the Atlantic time zone, and Newfoundland time zone. So it doesn't cover all of Canada.

3 cheers for NTP.

DLST and Cingular

[spotdog14]

Man, Cingular cannot even get my voicemail time right when daylight savings time kicks in normally, i just cant wait till this happens.

The fix

[Werrismys]

1. turn off daylight time saving

2. net stop "windows time"

3. net time /setsntp:some.ntp.server

4. net start "windows time"

done. Works as long as the locale and tz on ntp server are set correctly.

Re:The fix

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly do not know how NTP works!
Good luck with your solution...

Re:The fix

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you smoking? NTP has nothing to do with timezones. This won't fix anything.

Re:The fix

[bdognet]

Sorry, but I don't think this will work. Microsoft calculates changes in DST as a change in offset to GMT. It will query NTP for GMT.

History?

[nurbles]

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.

Re:History?

[pe1chl]

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.

It doesn't. But that is because MS Windows has never done this correctly, even when the DST date does not change.
Unix systems with a modern timezone library keep history about DST changes, and they can even be prepared for future algorithm changes as soon as they are decided, instead of having to be patched at exactly the right moment (after the last old-rule change and before the new rule takes effect).

It seems Windows users are not really interested.

Re:History?

[aXis100]

Western Australia has exactly the same issue. Until recently (a month ago) we didnt have daylight savings, then the politicians decided to spring a 3 year trial on us.

The Microsoft patch Daylight savings system has no concept of the year, so software now thinks that every year has and always will be daylight savings.

Oh dear.

[Rob T Firefly]

I used Windows to control all my time-related issues once. But after one BSOD all of a sudden it was 1955, my parents accidentally never met, and my future mom started hitting on me. Ugh...

As long as the patch can be uninstalled....

[mark-t]

... once they realize it how stupid an idea it was to change the dates for DST in the first place.

But hey, I guess they just gotta learn the hard way, don't they?

Re:As long as the patch can be uninstalled....

[KenAndCorey]

They haven't figured out that DST itself is a stupid concept, so they won't realize changing the dates is stupid either.

And even if they do, they'll claim it is a new and better way.

Simple Reg Fix...

[Sinbios]

I've been looking into this issue, and all it takes is a simple registry patch, as outlined in the Microsoft article, which was simple enough to follow. I don't see why they had to make a program with an installer. Maybe to leave their name on the patched systems?

The ability to change it for many computers is interesting, but you have to pay for their Network Administrator program as well as install it on each computer. A better solution (which is what I've done) is to just implement the patch via Domain Group Policies.

Re:Simple Reg Fix...

[pe1chl]

You are assuming an administrator that knows more than "doubleclick setup.exe then click NEXT NEXT NEXT FINISH".

Those are rare, and the dumbing-down that is popular in operating systems will not make that better.

Running a "regedit /s somefile.reg" on each system apparently is beyond what you can expect.

Re:Simple Reg Fix...

[fluffy99]

Yes, you can simply just edit the registry entries for the timezones. In fact I just pushed this changed to all my W2K clients.

The patch on XP appears to be a little bit more involved. Look at these keys on an XP machine that has gotten the patch and you'll see a subkey with multiple definitions for the dst start/stop. I see an entry called 2006 with the old def and a value 2007 with the new definition.

So does redefining the TZ, cause W2K to display incorrect timestamps for past files created during the weeks that previously were not included? The dynamic TZ keys I see under XP implies that XP will be smart enough to figure it out.

Re:Simple Reg Fix...

[fluffy99]

I just noticed that the Microsoft patch for XP is marked as an optional software update so it's not actually going out via WindowsUpdate. You have to visit windowsupdate.microsoft.com to get it. It is going out via WSUS though. I wonder if MS will change that before March?

Patch 928338 for XP seems to replace a DLL and does something with the tzchange.exe program. Even weirder, the spunist.inf file in the uninstall directory contains a list of installed software? I wonder if that's normal or if windowsupdate is getting a list of what software I have installed.

Re:Simple Reg Fix...

[fluffy99]

I hate replying to myself. I was wrong about the dll (it was standard part of the uninstall dir). The patch installs a program called tzchange and runs it to effect the timezone definition changes, which really just changes the registry entries.

Not Surprising, Microsoft Doesn't Care..

[SgtPepper]

Given their attitude.

Re:I'll stretch it

[EXMSFT]

download and install patches from a web site operated by the government

And now for another episode of, "Good Idea, Bad Idea"

Seriously... downloading patches from a website operated by the government?

Bush's legacy...

[haggie]

Forget the deficit and the war in Iraq, this president made the summer longer! When you are playing catch with your son in the backyard at 8:30pm on Nov 3rd, take a moment to thank the man responsible!

What about Linux?

[TheSync]

So what about Linux and the time change?

Re:What about Linux?

[Cheeze]

I don't think Microsoft cares about linux enough to make a patch.

I bet you could do 5 minutes of research on your own and figure it out though. :P

Re:What about Linux?

[SgtPepper]

You're on your own, after all noone is accountable. Don't you wish you had paid for your software now?

Re:What about Linux?

[rg3]

Apparently, glibc handles DST using some data files that describe the time changes depending on the time zone you select. They are usually located at /usr/share/zoneinfo, and they are also usually provided by a package. In my Slackware system, the package that provides, essentially, those data files is called glibc-zoneinfo. A quick search on packages.ubuntu.com reveals that the equivalent Ubuntu package, for example, is tzdata. So I would say that a simple update in the relevant data files and packages should do the job.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[djh101010]

Why would anyone do business with a vendor that treats people this way?

Or at a minimum treats their own products with some respect?
They already have a fix. It's clearly broken. And they're not fixing it!?! It's not like it'd cost them anything to do so. My bet is that they avoid fixing bugs on purpose just so they can charge suckers more for upgrades.
The only real fix is to get a vendor that doesn't act like such an asshole. Anything else is just a workaround.

I'm the LAST person do defend Microsoft, but...Sun also isn't patching Solaris 7 and earlier for the same bug. At some point, you just have to bite the bullet and either upgrade, or (gasp!) change your damn clock by hand. Twice. Big deal.

On the subject of gammer...it's not "savings"

[darthservo]

I can't believe /. has let so many comments slip by without notice.

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.

Re:On the subject of gammer...it's not "savings"

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

Sure it is. I have been putting my extra daylight into a savings account, and with the interest accumulated over the years, I have enough to live for at least 6 months without it until I can find some more daylight.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[sharkey]

Exactly. How does everybody but Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska drinking the DST Kool-Aid become Microsoft's fault?

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[tchuladdiass]

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.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[Ucklak]

At least servers in Arizona don't have to do anything.

But they're still an asshole.

[Dcnjoe60]

[I]I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.[/I]

It's not that W2K is broken that makes M$ an asshole in all of this. It's that they have a patch available for those who have paid for extended support, but they won't release it for the general public.

Since the cost to produce the patch has already been absorbed by M$, the only reason to withhold the patch is to make people frustrated with W2K to encourage them to upgrade. When you can readily fix something, but you don't, so that people will upgrade, well, then, your an asshole.

Re:But they're still an asshole.

[Mister Whirly]

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

Re:But they're still an asshole.

[marcello_dl]

The only reason to withhold the patch is to make people frustrated with W2K to encourage them to upgrade "Encourage" like the Godfather would, I'd add.

It seems every windows box out there is Pwned: by microsoft.

You get what you paid for.

[OrangeTide]

You expect more than 7 years of support for a software package that costs $350?

I'm guessing on the price, I couldn't find any one keeping history on Microsoft products. unlike Apple products where there are mobs of people tracking every piece of trivia.

Re:You get what you paid for.

[DMUTPeregrine]

Blizzard still supports and patches Starcraft. It was released in 1998, and the last patch was July 2006. They may patch again if they find any issues with the game. It only costed $50, and now costs about $10-$20. 9 years of support.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[djh101010]

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.


Right. But this is coming from nih, not the vendor. So as much as it's fun to bash microsoft, in this case...I'd rather my OS vendor of choice spend development effort on something fairly current, rather than back-porting fixes forever. At some point, ya gotta let go. Thanks for the URL by the way, you just saved me finding it.

Re:"Only" 1Mb

[Cro Magnon]

I AM old! My first PC wasn't much bigger than that!

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[Mister Whirly]

Sounds about as easy as going here - the official free solutions from Microsoft - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387 [microsoft.com]

1 question

[manno]

Where's your Honda dealer?

Re:1 question

[tehcyder]

Where's your Honda dealer?

The place where he goes to work every day?

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[Rob the Bold]

The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time;

This happened previously in 1987 when DST in the US changed as a result of 1986 legislation. It's not like they could claim they didn't know DST could be changed when that exact thing had happened just over a decade earlier. They could have made DST user-configurable, plenty of embedded systems desinged at that time did.

official (sortof) fix

[HappyDrgn]

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.

Has anybody seen this patch yet?

[HerculesMO]

I haven't seen it appear on my WSUS server or even in Windows updates... just curious if anybody else has seen it and if they have, what KB # was associated? Our company has some issues with some shitty software so we can't install it en-masse.

Thanks :)

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[Mr. Mindless]

and half of Indiana.

Too Late...

[carpltunl]

I've coded my own fix already. And I didn't forget Newfoundland.

Third party auditing of government software

[tepples]

You appear worried that any patch published by a government is a bad idea. I'm guessing that it's because you fear that a government might try to use the patch to spy on your box. My intent was that the patch would be written in a language expressed as plain text, where input=(UTC time, time zone) and output=DST offset, and third parties who understand JavaScript or VBScript or whatever other language the system chooses to express time zone computation scripts could audit the patch for rootkits.

Re:Third party auditing of government software

[Osiris Ani]

Aside from any concerns about potentially insidious ulterior motives, it has been shown time and time again that numerous government agencies — at the fedaral, state, and municipal levels — are nigh incapable of securing their own computers that house extremely sensitive data. Do you really think it's a good assumption to trust that OS-level patches made available on public government sites will be entirely safe from external manipulation?

Re:Third party auditing of government software

[redcane]

Yes, but if the OS only accepts valid (perhaps XML) input files that at worst can only mess up your time zone, there is little harm in it. Especially if it is a human readable format where anyone can audit it, and in fact the main reason to get it from the government is convenience (since it would be easy to "roll your own" given the file format).

Re:Third party auditing of government software

[duguk]

I don't know if it would solve the problem but there is a Time Zone Editor in the NT Resource Kit. Seems to work in Windows XP for me anyhow. TZEdit

DugUK

should that be modded FUNNY?

[putch]

i cant tell

Re:should that be modded FUNNY?

[Mister Whirly]

Only if you find modifying time zones hilarious...

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[makomk]

Right. But this is coming from nih, not the vendor. So as much as it's fun to bash microsoft, in this case...I'd rather my OS vendor of choice spend development effort on something fairly current, rather than back-porting fixes forever. At some point, ya gotta let go. Thanks for the URL by the way, you just saved me finding it.

True, I suppose. I wonder, though - does Sun have their own timezone files, or do they just redistribute the files from there? (I know Gentoo uses them fairly directly, but Gentoo is fairly unusual even for a Linux distro...)

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[sharkey]

Indiana drank the Kool-Aid last year.

Re:Umm... is this really a problem?

[smbarbour]

It is for anyone on a Windows network with mixed 2000 and XP installs using Active Directory. Kerberos (which Active Directory uses) will automatically deny access if the client's clock is more than 5 minutes off from the server's clock. If your server runs 2003 and your clients are 2000, or your server runs 2000 and your clients are XP, you will hit a problem.

There is a reason why every system clock in an Active Directory system is synchronized. If the server's clock is off from Atomic time, so will all of the clients.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[blowdart]

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?

Re:"Only" 1Mb

[ray-auch]

When was the last time you saw a 1K executable on Windows?

About a minute after running a search for one on a windows box [maybe you should have checked first]

Looks like there are three or four in system32 (I only looked in windows system folders) on a standard XP install.

About 15 are less than 4k (one disk block on a default setup), and over a hundred are under 16k.

That is just *.exe - there are a few small .com files too, and hundreds of .sys and .dll (driver/library files - not directly executable but are compiled code in PE format).

Foiled Again

[nurb432]

They just cant kill of W2k as much as they try :)

Once you make a good product, its hard to make it go away when all you do is produce crap afterwards.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[OnlineAlias]

All of Indiana, and more like 90% going one way and 10% going the other. It was fun to talk to Microsoft about getting a fix for all of our Exchange calenders...well, at least they were laughing...

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[totally bogus dude]

change your damn clock by hand. Twice. Big deal

That is not the correct way to adjust your clock for daylight savings. Here in Perth, W. Australia, the state government decided we'd have DST this summer for a 3 year trial (W.A. doesn't usually change its timezone for the summer months). Microsoft released a patch for Windows about 2 weeks before it came into effect (the legislation was rushed through). The Debian timezone update didn't even make it in to testing before the date it came into effect.

Anyway, I have a few contacts who keep sending me emails from the future, because they adjusted their computer's clock forward an hour. This means that if they send me an email at 9am, the Date: header will say it was sent at 9am +0800. Naturally, my system compensates by adding an extra hour to match my local timezone before showing the time to me.

Setting your clock forward one hour is only a solution for things which only need to display the time, not communicate it. If you do this on a web server, for example, then all of its Last-Modified headers will be off by one hour, which can affect content expiration, confuse users of your forums, and so on.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No, Windows' time code ACTUALLY IS broken

[mrchaotica]

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.

Re:No, Windows' time code ACTUALLY IS broken

[that this is not und]

People who 'dual boot' UNIX systems really shouldn't complain about time zone issues. I mean, I shudder to think of how convoluted their chron jobs are running, without any timezone issues even needing to be introduced.

Don't dual-boot. Get a KVM switch and put multiple boxes under your desk. I mean, really.

Re:No, Windows' time code ACTUALLY IS broken

[osu-neko]

Don't dual-boot. Get a KVM switch and put multiple boxes under your desk. I mean, really.

Lugging around multiple laptops and a KVM switch is going to be a real pain. I think I'll stick with dual-booting, thanks.

Re:No, Windows' time code ACTUALLY IS broken

[mrchaotica]

Don't dual-boot. Get a KVM switch and put multiple boxes under your desk. I mean, really.

Oh, I know -- in fact, I deleted Windows off my last remaining dual-boot box recently. However, that doesn't change the fact that many people do want to dual-boot (and as Linux gains market share, the number of people wanting to do so can only increase), so it is entirely reasonable to criticize Windows' stupidity about time.

Re:No, Windows' time code ACTUALLY IS broken

[sumdumass]

This will be yet another reason for people to switch o linux on some equiptment. When the time zone takes effect and people are having issues, the see microsoft selling the patch (either with updated OS's or extended support contracts,) they they realize thier otherwise normal and functionaly fine computer won't handle the new OS, they will be looking for a replacment that gives them freedom from extortion.

It is all in reletiveness. The newer distros are a snap to install, you don't need to know "kernel hacking for fun" by heart to run linux. And if they aren't needed any new applications that will require newer operating systems, then they will probably be just fine switching. The will likley cause a cascade effect were more users means more development and more driver support wich means more of the old steriotypes of linux will be one more decade in the past.

Re:I'll stretch it

[Anonymous Coward]

If an operating system does not define a language for a government agency to express amendments to time zone rules so that the people can download and install patches from a web site operated by the government, then the operating system is broken.

WOW! You couldn't be MORE WRONG! I probably hate M$ more than most, and I can tell you right now there is no legit reason to blame M$ for this one. When was the last time the laws regarding DST start/stop were changed? How could M$ or any other software company POSSIBLY have foreseen the need to change this on-the-fly?

And, if you bothered to read the M$ tech article on this you would know that they DO provide a way to update for this unforseen change that came along well after the release of Windows 2000. Yes it is a manual process but at least you can adjust Win2K to follow this recent change in DST start/stop.

No, Win2K is not broken (well, not because of this, heh). How ever I am miffed that M$ is not just releasing a free patch for Win2K users, it wouldn't be THAT difficult for them to do! They simply are trying to find more ways to kill off Win2K so they can get us hold outs to buy WinXP even though we don't want it... They are pissed that so many people still find Win2K and Office2K perfectly fine for their needs and are not willing to fork over hundreds of dollars for new software that they really don't need...

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[jrockway]

> So tell me, are Redhat producing updates for 10 year old linux installs?

Windows 2000 came out in 1997?

Microsoft is the odd one out

[dbIII]

Good point - I don't know why Microsoft don't just use zoneinfo like everyone else and completely avoid this hassle. The same thing happened in Australia last year and the year before - no time zone update in time from Microsoft but everything else was OK.

A very obvious solution

[rbanffy]

A very obvious solution would be to have an added tab in the date/time (or whatever it's called in Windows) control panel that would allow the user to change the begin-end dates for such modifiers.

This would fix it once and for all.

BTW, I live in a country (Brazil) where daylight saving time starts and ends on different days every year.

Re:I'll stretch it

[redcane]

How could they possibly have foreseen? For a start, this particular change was written into legislation 2 years ago (according to the article). Secondly, you have to put the original timezone data into the system somehow, why not make it a repeatable process? Thirdly, time zones change all the time across the world. Of course microsoft only sells it's OS to people in U.S right? Not like they need to cater for the other 95%+ of the planet right? In the last two years I know of at least two time zone changes applying in this country. It *should* be darn easy to change this in an OS.

wrong

[dingfelder]

The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784. Read the details in his essay, "An Economical Project." He came up with the idea to save money, as you would not need to burn candles in the dark if you got up when it became light.

Re:The patch...

[Thundersnatch]

Windows machines automatically sync to time.windows.com using the NTP protocol. Those time.windows.com servers are synchronized to NIST stratum-1 time servers, which in turn sync to stratum-0 "atomic clocks".

Re:Umm... is this really a problem?

[dogbertsd]

But those calculations are all based on UTC/GMT time, not local time. DST and time zones have no impact on Kerberos authentication, otherwise a user in San Jose wouldn't be able to authenticate with DC in New York.

Now, if people think they are just going to change the system time and not mess with fixing DST, that's a different matter, and it will cause Kerberos authentication errors.

what about embedded devices?

[Thundersnatch]

MS has a manual patch process for Windows Mobile and CE devices, but relies on phone and PDA vendors to roll it into thier own patches.

A bigger problem is all the other embedded systems out there with no defined patching process. Firewalls, GPS units, Blackberries, VCRs, TiVOs... what a pain in the ass.

Re:what about embedded devices?

[Mechcozmo]

Well, I know that TiVos automatically update themselves. Plus, as they run Linux, it should work pretty well. Nobody ever sets the clock on their VCRs anyway, at least not after the first blackout. And most embedded systems like routers and stuff can have a firmware upgrade to fix their date/time issues. Granted, there are a number of doohickies that don't have patching processes but I don't think the mall directory kiosk will be too badly affected. ATMs on the other hand...

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[sumdumass]

.I'd rather my OS vendor of choice spend development effort on something fairly current, rather than back-porting fixes forever. At some point, ya gotta let go.

Thats the entire point of all this grief. MS has already spent the development effort on this and recouped the expenses by the extended support program.

The issue isn't really fixing it or not fixing it, It is fixing it only for those who pay again. ie. either extended support contract or new OS. What are you going to say when MS developes this model for for their security fixes and either deny you patches after one year or give them to you if you pay for an extended support contract or buy an upgraded OS. The service pack could become releases so they can keep a running schedule.

Imagine XPsp1 being a half priced upgrade to XP only, costing you $40 or so and it included security patches that can only be gained by bying it.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[JaiWing]

this behavior and _quality_ of vista (and the DRM) will push a large number of people to mac or linux. MS will need to consider the world where either: they get laws passed making other os's illegal; or they no longer control an 80% market share.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[Askmum]

And why doesn't it have a user-configurable system where you can change the DST parameters yourself?
It's something every respectable Unix distribution has since... god knows how long.
Just look at the TZ file and your mind boggles at the many different implentations there are and the possibilities you have for DST in your own personal fiefdom.

W2K is just broken by design. No-one can explain to me why you would ever program this in a manner that you need an official vendor patch to change these parameters.
Okay, wait, I see the light. It all has to do with customer binding.

NTP in Windows

[red crab]

I really find that annoying that Windows requires Active Directory to be set up prior to configuring a Win2K/WinXP node as an NTP client. It's just one of the many restrictive practices M$ adopts. The simplest of these being that MS Paint every time redirects me to 'My Pictures' folder whenever I wish to save a picture file. Some registry hacks may bypass such restrictions at times but this is not something an average user would want to do.

Arizona

[Dj Stingray]

but what about us DOS users?

Joe: What happened to all the W2K users?

Bob: I think they moved to Arizona.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[pedestrian crossing]

I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.

If not broken, then certainly fragile. Why the hell isn't it just *configurable*?

That's the main problem with MS junk, they deliberately make it inflexible, and eventually that leads to breakage.

It used to be that European DST changed a week later than US DST. I was admining Novell 4.x systems at the time, and they <gasp> allowed you to *configure* the DST change to happen whenever you wanted it to.

MS products are designed to force upgrades for the most trivial of reasons...

Re:GMT

[Kvasio]

If someone has problems with your metric "80 past 2 on April 47th", I provide English date format
"3 piglets, 1/16 of stone and a horn after Matins, on 3 Sunday after Xmas"

wouldn't you 'fix' this

[acid_zebra]

by installing one of the many free NTP clients on your machine?

Re:I'll stretch it

[tehcyder]

Seriously... downloading patches from a website operated by the government?

Yes, because obviously the government website will secretly install a tracking device INTO YOUR BRAIN when you start the download and send a black helicopter to kidnap your dog.

What does that suggest to you?

[Nurgled]

Is that you, Eliza?

Come, come, elucidate your thoughts!

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[canuck57]

I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.

W2K is broken. Why cannot the user of W2K just make a new zone or edit the data behind it?

Add this to the hazards of using a proprietary operating system.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[operagost]

If you RTFA, you can do exactly that with the tzedit utility. But an admin who has to fix hundreds of machines would like an automated method.

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[operagost]

No, but NT4 came out in 1996. Read the post again.

Re:Umm... is this really a problem?

[smbarbour]

Now, if people think they are just going to change the system time and not mess with fixing DST, that's a different matter, and it will cause Kerberos authentication errors.
 
... Well, these are users we're talking about.

Bragging rights?

[lullabud]

What bragging rights do they have for software update distribution? Outlook found its own update by itself? How archaic. Something like `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` would find all the updates for the entire system in one fell swoop rather than forcing applications to update themselves individually, and Windows only recently began moving in that direction with Microsoft Update as opposed to Windows Update. Moreover, applications that are accessing open standards and common libraries wouldn't need to "chew on data" for a while because the fixes could be implemented at a lower level. Those MS guys just don't get it... It's amazing to me how illogical so many things in Windows are, from UI to command line syntax to the registry to documentation.

Microsoft did release a fix for Win2K...

[bdognet]

Microsoft published a registry fix for this problem here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387/en-us They also have a full page devoted to their products here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007. mspx. Don't forget your Windows mobile phones. For a good list of these and other vendor's fixes, checkout this article: http://www.edgeblog.net/2007/daylight-saving-time- the-year-2007-problem While registry fixes aren't perfect, they do work. At least Microsoft has been upfront about the problem. It has been much harder to find fixes/patches from Sun, Cisco, Oracle, etc. Complaining that Microsoft did not release a patch for an out-of-support product, is like getting mad at RedHat for not patching version 7. All vendors end support eventually. And, don't even think of asking for a fix from your PBX vendor, your time clock vendor, or your cell phone carrier. They'll just tell you to manually set it. My microwave blinks 12:00, but it least it will still be right twice a day...