Microsoft Charging Businesses $4K for DST Fix

eldavojohn writes "Microsoft has slashed the price it's going to charge users on the daylight saving time fixes. As you know, the federal law that moves the date for DST goes into effect this month. Although the price of $4000 is 1/10 of the original estimate Microsoft made, it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for. From the article: 'Among the titles in that extended support category are Windows 2000, Exchange Server 2000 and Outlook 2000, the e-mail and calendar client included with Office 2000. For users running that software, Microsoft charges $4,000 per product for DST fixes. For that amount, customers can apply the patches to all systems in their organizations, including branch offices and affiliate.' The only thing they can't do, said a Microsoft rep, is redistribute them."

Comments

Screw 'em

[chill]

Manually adjust the clock. Just write a small script to take care of it for logins or as a scheduled task for servers.

Re:Screw 'em

[iPaul]

Kerberos auth has problems if the clocks are > 300 sec out of sync. It's not that you couldn't do it manually, you just run the risk of a "hickup", like no one in the domain is allowed to log in.

Re:Screw 'em

[Anml4ixoye]

Hahaha.

As an engineer who is right in the middle of helping our customers make the changes necessary for the DST fix, it is much more complicated than that.

First, you have all of the servers and clients which rely on one another. The biggest effect is on mail - Exchange/Outlook/OWA.

Second, you have to do it in the right order, at about the same time. If you update the server, then clients who schedule appointments will be off until they update.

Third, you've got software which calculates various things based on that date. Think financial transactions, etc.

I've blogged about the tool we have to help customers figure out what has to be done.

I wish it was as easy as just updating a script, but when you have to coordinate that change across 10s or 100s of thousands of servers, clients, etc, it's not an easy task.

And let's not forget Microsoft isn't the only one having to make changes. Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Blackberries - they all have changes that have to be made. I'll personally be glad when this is all done. Ugh.

Re:Screw 'em

[cheater512]

But all Linux had to do was update its zone info stuff.

Why is Windows so much harder? Didnt they do it properly?

Re:Screw 'em

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Its basically a Microsoft WTF. While every sane operating system keeps the hardware clock on universal time (UTC/GMT), Windows keeps the hardware clock on local time. This affects things like the date format stored on disk in the filesystem.

Re:Screw 'em

[dotfile]

Umm, that's not really the problem. It doesn't matter what the hardware clock is set for, UTC or local time. In any sane installation you're only going to use the hardware clock until you sync with the NTP servers anyway. The local time is still going to change on a different date than the OS is configured for. If you have Linux or UNIX boxes and keep the hardware clock set for UTC, you're STILL going to need to fix the time zone setings for the correct DST changeover dates, otherwise all local times will be off by an hour between the new changeover date and the old one. It's not a clock thing, it a time zone thing. We're having to apply patches to every single box in our infrastructure -- that's around 15,000 systems, not including desktops. Those add another 100K or more. We've had to patch Slowaris, Linux, HPUX, AIX, and a few flavors of Windoze, and that's just the servers. Then there are patches required for Java and a host of other crap, don't ask me why they don't just use the damn system clock.

The issue here is not the DST patch, it's the fact that Micro$loth was charging $40K for the Windoze 2000 patch. They justified it because W2K is officially out of support for patches - it's EOL or EOSL, I don't remember which becuase I pay very little attention to Windoze server issues.

Re:Screw 'em

[VertigoAce]

I should have been more clear. The problem is that people don't schedule appointments in UTC. I don't send a meeting request for March 20th at 15:00 UTC. I want my meeting to happen at a particular local time. If the definition of local time (including DST dates) changes between when I set the meeting and when it actually happens, the UTC time for that meeting also needs to change.

To add to the problems, different computers and programs have been patched at different times. What if someone with a patched computer sent out a meeting request that had the UTC time and I received it on a computer without it? My computer shows the meeting an hour off from the sender's computer. When I now patch my computer, I don't know whether to adjust the meeting time or not (assuming I didn't know the patch status of the sender's computer). There's not much you can do to avoid these issues, so people are trying to get the word out that you should confirm times for the next few weeks instead of assuming the program is displaying the intended time.

Go Linux!

[Just Some Guy]

It's hard to say this without sounding like a zealot, but these kinds of things are nothing but good for Free Software. This patch should be nothing more than an edit to a single configuration file (and if it's not, then that's another problem), but you can't download that change freely or give it to your friends? I can understand - even if I disagree - with not giving away your applications. I cannot be made to understand, though, not giving away trivial bugfixes.

Re:Go Linux!

[InsaneGeek]

Is there actually a patch from Redhat/Suse/etc for systems that are as old as Win2k available? This really is about getting one from the original vendor, there are a number of different free ones available for Win2k but they don't come from MS which tends to be the kicker for some highly touchy organizations (ones that tend to be audited quite often, etc). Regarding Linux, it's basically in the exact same position; only I don't believe that can get a fix for Redhat 7.2 from the vendor, I could download/write my own which would be the equivalent of installing one of the non-MS provided Win2k DST fixes.

Re:Go Linux!

[kernelpanicked]

You would be wrong. If you check the last few updates fedora-legacy made to RedHat 7.2 and 7.3's glibc, the fix is already there. I work for a web host, where there are still quite a few of these old machines left kicking so yes I had to verify this.

Re:Go Linux!

[InsaneGeek]

Do you think that it matters that it's unofficial support provided by Redhat employee's on the side to an audit company? Having dealt with auditors before I'm going to say no.

free patches are available

[ceresur]

We are using this patch at my organization for all our Win2k and Win2k Server boxes out there (running legacy apps that we don't need to upgrade). http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unofficia l-windows-2000-daylight.html

Re:free patches are available

[jayhawk88]

Microsoft themselves also offer a free solution for Windows 2000 servers. Perhaps this takes a bit more work than an official patch would, but if you've got so many 2000 servers that you'd consider dropping $4k on a patch, chances are you've got Active Directory or at least an admin with the skills to script a rollout of a reg file with this fix.

Really inaccurate story.

[pythas]

It's not $4000 per product, it's $4000 for ALL the products

They also provide a variety of workarounds (registry files you can apply, and scripts to apply to a large number of machines remotely) for Windows 2000. If you don't like that, there's unofficial patches as well (http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unoffici al-windows-2000-daylight.html)

Yay for overblown stories!

Re:Really inaccurate story.

[TheAwfulTruth]

Where is the free patch for Apple's OLDER OSes?

MS has free patches for all current OSes as well.

MS wins this round.

And "System Clock"? You mean the thing on the motherboard that ususally knows knows NOTHING about times zones or DST? And if it does then ALSO requires a patch to work right now? How will that help in any way? :(

Re:Bastages.

[TheSHAD0W]

This is just for Windows 2000 and products from that same era. XP and stuff for it shouldn't be a problem.

Re:things that make you go hmmm...

[TheSHAD0W]

Hey - I don't have to believe in conspiracies in order to spread rumors about them. ;-)

Re:Whoa

[Just Some Guy]

The real question: Do you like George Bush [...] Or do you hate Bush [...]?

No, the real, real question is: why are you so desperate to drag political bullshit into every story? Love him or hate him, GWB has absolutely nothing to do with how much Microsoft charges for a patch.

innovation

[Epiphenomenon]

I for one think that $4000 for innovation like this is a small price to pay.

Down with DST!

[astrosmash]

That was one expensive piece of pointless legislation.

I've always felt that if we could harness all of the time and energy software developers and IT departments have spent over the years working on DST-related issues in software and apply it to some other purpose of good, we'd all be driving around in flying cars and taking vacations on the moon by now. It is 2007, after all. You know, the future?

That's right. I'm blaming the state of the world on DST.

Re:Down with DST!

[theCoder]

Do what I do -- protest DST. I grew up in Indiana where they didn't participate in the DST silliness (Indiana recently caved to the peer pressure and now does do the switch). I've since moved to another state that does practice DST. For a few years, I went along with it, but last summer I decided to try not switching. I just got up earlier and mentally subtracted an hour from other people's times. It's a little confusing at times (especially when others send meeting notices that clearly say standard time but they mean daylight time), but otherwise it works very well. At work, I set my TZ variable correctly, and 90% of all the times I see on clocks are as I expect them. I plan on doing the same with this year's summer time.

The thing I learned most from my experiment, however, is that it takes a lot of will power to get up earlier. Most people simply do not have the will power to get up and be in bed an hour earlier. And sadly, that's the reason we spend so much time, money, and effort on DST. Just to trick lazy people into getting out of bed an hour earlier. It's also the reason why a permanent year round DST (which I've seen some people advocate) is doomed to fail. People would just adjust and do everything an hour later (and then we'd need a 2 hour DST). Only the constant switching keeps them in line.

So, while I personally despise DST as a ridiculous concept, it does have its uses.

there are free utils to patch this

[jjeffries]

There's a free patcher here that I've used on a few 2k machines and one NT4 machine and nothing has blown up thus far.

First link under "freeware downloads".

Re:Bastages.

[master0ne]

XP was released about the same time they considerd changing DST im not sure if XP (orignal unpatched version) was DST compliant, however by the time SP1 was released, they had already decided to change DST in 2007, so many companies have had tons of time to prepair, and now that its upon up, people are just NOW rushing to patch (which could have been done YEARS ago) and making a scene about not being able to get patches, products prior to XP are out of the "primary support" cycle from Microsoft, and as such patches are no longer provided, MS has said they will patch previous products for a price, which is what they are doing (cheeper than they orignally stated too!) none the less, this is a good point for open sorce software, as another poster here said, it should be a simple config file change, easy to patch, if it isnt thats MS's bad coding practices, and as such im sure pretty much all OSS software still being activly developed already has patches avalable...

Nothing to see here.

[RightSaidFred99]

This just in - company charges money to do work for companies who are using an unsupported suite of products! Film at 11!

I know in Soviet Russia that work was done for free for the betterment of ones comrades, but this isn't Soviet Russia quite yet. Companies charge you when they provide a service for you.

Re:things that make you go hmmm...

[Dutch Gun]

It's a little different. You're comparing a fix for a defective product to a patch to change behavior to fit an unforseeable change in timekeeping logic. And, please note that these products aren't even officially being supported anymore (thus, the service charge).

I'm not trying to defend MS, but there's no need to make dodgy comparisons... One can surmise that open-source users will likely have an easier time making this change, seeing as they don't have to rely on a corporation to update their binaries.

TZEdit

[HeyBob!]

I've been using tzedit.exe (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387) for manually updating a few old pc's

Re:things that make you go hmmm...

[kripkenstein]

That congress-Microsoft DST conspiracy theory seems a tad... overboard, to me at least. They do plenty of corrupt things we know about, theorizing about something as odd as this is unnecessary.

As for the summary saying "it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for." - well, no, that isn't true. Customers paid for a product and for support for it; the support for Windows 2000 is over, as per the original agreements. They got what they paid for. This is the same issue with any proprietary, closed-source software - the client is left to depend on a single vendor for patches once the official support is over, and can effectively be taken hostage (I wouldn't trust patches from anyone who doesn't have access to all the source code). Microsoft isn't doing anything 'special' here beyond typical closed-source tactics. But those are enough to show the importance of using FOSS.

Exactly

[Philip K Dickhead]

This is for OS that are out of support.

If you bought an extended support contract, at the time of expiration, you get this for free.

If you thought "I won't have any W2K in 6 months, so why bother" and 24 months later, the DST issue caught you - well, pay up.

Or what value did those who paid for extended support get?

Re:Exactly

[Wakko Warner]

Oh, for fuck's sake. They're charging $4000 for an update to two registry values. I'm all for charging to support end-of-life products, but only a complete retard would be able to justify what Microsoft's doing here.

Relatively Inexpesive

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

This fee is all inclusive. That means any product in extended support, and any DST related patch.

So that includes:
    Windows 2000 Server straight DST patch
    Windows 2000 CRT DST patch (Never heard of that one? See here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932955/en-us/ and here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932590/en-us/
    Exchange running on W2K
    Visual Studio 6.0 patches (I believe...)

So $4000 to cover *all* unsupported systems, and to have a human to call and say "Your patch screwed up my server" and have them fix it, is to be cliche, Priceless

..or just DIY

[ph43thon]

This is absurd. Just go here and follow the instructions.

Three steps.

1. Create .reg file by copy/pasting from that page.
2. Create .vbs file by copy/pasting from that page.
3a. Create GPO to import reg key and run VBScript on Win2k machines at Startup.
or
3b. In absence of AD, modify script to copy itself and .reg file to all Win2k machines and apply fix.

If you're such a small organization that you don't have an I.T. group.. then.. it's probably simple to use TZEdit to update your piddly network.

For fun, you can trick out the script to make sure it only runs once.

Hickup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the sound of a Southerner making a mistake?

non free is like that.

[twitter]

all Linux had to do was update its zone info stuff. Why is Windows so much harder? Didnt they do it properly?

As an end user, it was even easier. All I did was apt-get update/upgrade.

The difference between the free and non free worlds is never more glaring than when you "upgrade". Because non free companies don't trust each other or their users, they can't really co-operate. When they have to co-operate, things get sticky. Mechanisms, like the Windows registry, are so bad that it's easier to wipe and reload than it is to actually update software. What's a pain for individual users is multiplied by thousands for businesses and then compounded by the number of applications updated. A whole industry exists to help banks and other businesses do trivial things like change out versions of text editors and mail clients on ordinary workstations. It's a process that's excruciatingly manual, bandwith intensive and slow, with each person able to do less than ten machines a night. Add some smoke an mirrors timing "security"* into the mix and you have something even worse.

*-there is no security on a platform with a one in four botnet ownership. The pain and expense are all for nothing.

Re:things that make you go hmmm...

[kbielefe]

Talk about tinfoil hats, how paranoid do you have to be to tie a daylight savings change to the Iraq war?

The daylight savings time change is one tiny paragraph of a huge energy policy bill, and by the way provides for a study in 9 months to see if it actually helped, and a potential of reverting back to the 2005 schedule if it didn't help. You may not agree with the policies put forth in the bill, but it certainly wasn't prompted by a desire to avoid appropriating money --- my senators and representative (all republicans) voted against it for anti-pork reasons.

Re:Bastages.

[OmnipotentEntity]

$4K? How about this?

Open up regedit and go to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\TimeZoneInformation

Change DaylightStart to the following
00 00 03 00 02 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
(Simply we're changing 04 to 03 and 01 to 02)

Change StandardStart to the following
00 00 0b 00 01 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
(Simply we're changing 0a to 0b and 05 to 01)

Why those changes?

DaylightStart rules:
04 becomes 03 because we're going from "April" (04) to "March" (03). 01 becomes 02 because we're going from the 1st Sunday (in April) to the 2nd Sunday (in March).

StandardStart rules:
0a becomes 0b because we're going from "October" (0a) to "November" (0b). 05 becomes 01 because we're going from the Last Sunday (in October) to the 1st Sunday (in November).

Consider that one on the house. It works for Windows 2000 at least.