Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 To Support True UTC-Compliant Leap Second (thurrott.com)

Mehedi Hassan, writing for Thurrott: Microsoft is bringing support for leap seconds -- yes, that one extra second -- to Windows, starting with Windows 10 Redstone 5 and Windows Server 2019. With the upcoming updates for Windows 10, Microsoft's operating system now deals with leap seconds in a way that is incredibly accurate, UTC-compliant, and traceable. Leap seconds typically occur every 18 months, resulting in one extra second. The extra leap second occurs to adjust with the earth's slowed down rotation, and an extra second is added to UTC in order to keep it in-sync with mean solar time. To deal with the extra second more appropriately, Windows 10 will now display that extra second, instead of directly jumping to the next one. H/T Perfycat who adds: The new move makes Windows Server the first OS to have full support of the rare but valid timestamp of: 23:59:60. Linus Torvalds has long maintained that users needs to chill out about leap seconds. Further reading: Microsoft's blog post 1, and blog post 2.

Comments

Unix systems had it first

[guruevi]

Leap second support has been in Linux and other Unix systems forever. The problem is the many standards on how to implement leap seconds. They are generally a representational problem, not a counting problem. It’s similar to time zones, they are arbitrarily defined and thus not very useful for true mathematical implementation. Microsoft has picked one of the dozen or so standards on how to represent leap seconds. The fact is that you should pick whatever method is suitable and useful for interoperation with the rest of stuff you have.