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Advisory: Late breaking daylight saving time changes in Argentina (again) for 2008-2009

Ever see the movie Groundhog Day?  Well, I feel like I’m re-living a past event.

The government of Argentina is changing their daylight saving time just as they did last December.  And once again, this fast-tracked change came with little advance notice and little reason for a fast implementation.  Many customers, enterprises may not have enough time to make any changes or deploy any updates to their networks or systems.

So, our teams in corporate worked with our incredible LATAM team on a new post to their TechNet blog and their website in Argentina on DST (thank you all!).  The blog post details the changes that the Argentinean government has announced.  The new start and end dates for the daylight saving time in 2008 through 2009 is as followings: 

  • Daylight saving time begins:  October 19, 2008
  • Daylight saving time ends:  March 15, 2009

We provide a couple of different options – please review the blog entry, particularly if you have offices in the region or do business with companies or individuals in Argentina.  This from the blog entry:

Since the new dates published by the government are different from what was defined in the previous years, Windows-based computers will not correctly interpret the time that is related to the transition to daylight saving time.

In addition to Microsoft products, other software, OS releases and hardware (phones, routers, switches and managed devices) may require updates and/or changes. 

Our teams at Microsoft have taken several steps to alert customers and partners to the change in Argentina. 

Although there will not be any hot fixes provided prior to the change on Sunday, advice and recommendations have been provided and will also be available soon on the central Microsoft DST & time zone site at http://www.microsoft.com/time and at http://www.microsoft.com/argentina/dst.

Of course, a few days is a tough timeframe to get everyone alerted to a change of this magnitude. In order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST rules and time zones, ample advance notice and concentrated efforts on promoting any change should be provided to the people and businesses impacted.  Microsoft recommends a minimum timeframe of 6 months to an ideal 1 to 1½ year advance notification.

General recommendations

  • There is no hotfix available at this time to update Windows Operating Systems with the 2008-2009 DST dates for Argentina.
  • Please note that if you adjust the machine’s clock manually, you may have adverse effects on your environment. This procedure is not supported by Microsoft.
  • Before applying the changes on Windows Operating Systems to reflect the change in Daylight Saving Time in Argentina, be aware of potential issues that will affect Microsoft Office Outlook and Exchange Server. Read “Impacts for Outlook clients and Exchange” section for more details.
  • Contact Microsoft Support prior to any modification if you are unsure about the steps to follow in order to be prepared for the Daylight Saving Time change in Argentina.

And of course, not all provinces in Argentina will follow the new DST rules: this notice was published from the Salta Province.  In all, apparently twelve provinces are exceptions in the latest (Decree 1693) as noted in a new Decree 1705 that appeared today in the official government bulletin (meaning provinces that won’t use the new DST rules):

  • CATAMARCA
  • LA RIOJA
  • MENDOZA
  • SALTA
  • SAN JUAN
  • SAN LUIS
  • LA PAMPA
  • NEUQUEN
  • RIO NEGRO
  • CHUBUT
  • SANTA CRUZ
  • TIERRA DEL FUEGO, ANTARTIDA E ISLAS DEL ATLANTICO SUR

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST, Argentina.

2 replies on “Advisory: Late breaking daylight saving time changes in Argentina (again) for 2008-2009”

Breaking news. Less than 24 hours before the DST implementation the government of Jujuy states that that province won’t use the DST. It sounds like a Guiness record to me.

Help me!  Buenos Aires apparently changed their clocks today (October 19th).  My computer now has to think it’s in Greenland for the clock to be right.  And in Mendoza?

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