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Announcement: New Xbox 360 Elite $50 rebate for U.S. customers ’til October 5, 2009

Even with the recent price drops on the Xbox 360 Elite to $299, a new announcement today on an additional $50 rebate for customers in the U.S. from now (September 22) and October 5, 2009. More information on the rebate can be found here.


Fine print: Mail-in rebate offer valid in the 50 United States, D.C., and all U.S. military bases with valid APO/FPO addresses. Valid for new Xbox 360 Elite purchases made September 22, 2009 through October 5, 2009. This completed rebate form and qualifying proofs of purchase must be postmarked no later than November 20, 2009. Limit 1 rebate per household except where prohibited by law. Not combinable with other Microsoft rebates or offers for this product.


Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360

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Also available via http://bit.ly/jX8w4. Did I mention that the Xbox 360 is a great Windows 7 Media Center Extender? 😉

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Announcement: Updated Microsoft’s Support Policy for Daylight Saving Time & Time Zone Updates

This from the Microsoft Support Lifecycle team, a revision to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy regarding the availability of Daylight Saving Time (DST) and Time Zone (TZ) updates during the Extended Support phase…

DST or TZ updates are important because unless they are applied, the time zone setting for a computer’s clock and calendar, as well as the recorded and reported timestamps may be incorrect.  This change to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy will enable all Microsoft customers to obtain these broadly distributed DST or TZ updates and help ensure their computer’s time information is accurate.

There are currently two kinds of updates for DST or TZ:

  1. The general distribution DST or TZ releases that are intended for broad consumption and made available via Microsoft and/or Windows Update two times every calendar year
  2. Out-of-cycle DST or TZ hotfixes

Previously, both types of DST or TZ updates were made available at no charge only for products in the Mainstream Support phase. However, to obtain any of these updates for products in the Extended Support phase, customers had to purchase and enroll in the DST Extended Hotfix Support program.

As per the revised DST policy, Microsoft has decided to make the following changes for products that entered the Extended Support phase after January 1, 2009:

  • General distribution of DST or TZ releases for products in the Extended Support phase will now be available at no-charge and be made available via Microsoft Update and/or Windows Update.  These general distribution updates will be provided twice a year on the northern hemisphere’s fall and winter.

Find out more at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean42

 

Tags: Windows, Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Egypt, Australia, ; 18,000,000 (up from 3M six months ago); 20,400,000 (up >3M)

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Reminder: Microsoft Windows 2009 Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones Hotfix available for Egypt, Western Australia

In case you missed the announcement, there is a new Microsoft Windows 2009 Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones Hotfix available for Egypt and Western Australia. See my original post here.


Once again, as has happened in the past, a couple of countries will see new changes to their observation of Daylight Saving Time (DST), this time in Egypt and Western Australia.

A new Microsoft Knowledge Base article is up – KB 974176 – noting the hotfix now available to update the Daylight Saving Time for the “(GMT+02:00) Cairo” and “(GMT+08:00) Perth” time zones for the year 2009 for Windows Server 2003-based, Windows Vista-based, Windows Server 2008-based, and Windows 7-based computers.

Egypt has announced to change the Daylight Saving Time (DST) to end on midnight August 21st. This hotfix updates the end date of DST for the “(GMT+02:00) Cairo” time zone in 2009. The clock will move one hour backward at midnight between August 20th and August 21st.
Australia has announced the end of Daylight Saving Time for the Western Australia time zone. This hotfix removes the Daylight Saving Time for the “(GMT+08:00) Perth” time zone.


More specifically, this hotfix:



  • Sets DST end date for Egypt at 23:59:59.999 on August 20th, 2009

  • Removes DST for Western Australia time zone in 2009.

To get the hotfix, click here to view and request hotfix downloads.

<soapbox>

I have to recommend that in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST rules and time zones, governments should provide 1) official confirmations of planned changes to DST and time zones, and 2) provide ample advance notice and concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens is a requirement.  If you look at how Australia approached their upcoming change in in 2008 (more details are available here), the national government allowed eight months or so between the announcement and the actual change.   

</soapbox>

Tags: Windows, Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Egypt, Australia, ; 18,000,000 (up from 3M six months ago); 20,400,000 (up >3M)

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Announcement: Microsoft Windows Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones Hotfix available for Egypt, Western Australia

Clip art from Office OnlineOnce again, as has happened in the past, a couple of countries will see new changes to their observation of Daylight Saving Time (DST) , this time in Egypt and Western Australia. (see here for 2008 changes in Egypt)


A new Microsoft Knowledge Base article is up – KB 974176 – noting the hotfix now available to update the Daylight Saving Time for the “(GMT+02:00) Cairo” and “(GMT+08:00) Perth” time zones for the year 2009 for Windows Server 2003-based, Windows Vista-based, Windows Server 2008-based, and Windows 7-based computers.



Egypt has announced to change the Daylight Saving Time (DST) to end on midnight August 21st. This hotfix updates the end date of DST for the “(GMT+02:00) Cairo” time zone in 2009. The clock will move one hour backward at midnight between August 20th and August 21st.
Australia has announced the end of Daylight Saving Time for the Western Australia time zone. This hotfix removes the Daylight Saving Time for the “(GMT+08:00) Perth” time zone.
More specifically, this hotfix:



  • Sets DST end date for Egypt at 23:59:59.999 on August 20th, 2009

  • Removes DST for Western Australia time zone.

To get the hotfix, click here to view and request hotfix downloads.


Please note that these packages are call-in/request only packages and will not be released to the Microsoft Download Center or via Microsoft Update Services.  This change will be included in the next DST Windows cumulative package released for all currently supported operating systems in December 2008 (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista).


As noted in this article, Microsoft strongly recommends that DST and time zone updates be installed on all impacted systems, devices and applications to ensure consistency with current DST rules and time zone settings worldwide. Customers should review the product updates available and posted on this site and at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_prodlist for the latest and updated information of Microsoft products affected by daylight saving time.



An important note for Consumers


For those customers (consumers, small businesses) wondering “Does this mean I have to install the updates manually?” 


No.  Generally, consumers should wait for the updates to be installed via Windows Update rather than download and install these from the DLC.  And for end users who have their PCs managed by a central administrator, your IT folks will handle the distribution and updating of your PCs over the network.  (When in doubt, ask. 😉


Additional information


Please note that where we have heard that changes may be coming to a territory but have yet to receive an official confirmation from a government, we indicate that the changes are “not yet confirmed.”


As a reminder on our cadence (outlined here and in a prior post), our product teams are have moved to a semi-annual product update cadence (with provisions for out-of-band releases as needed).  Following the Windows regular cadence for publishing newly legislated DST rules and time zone updates, our “Cumulative DST and Time Zone Updates” will be released in November/ December (to the Download Centre and via Windows Update respectively) for the coming calendar year; we also provide semi-annual updates (like this one) in the July/August timeframe as needed. 


For each, the window closes for additional updates a few months (generally four to six) prior to the release date. 


As I originally posted here, most Windows applications (and some services) reference the underlying OS for DST and time zone information, but some do not. The product and service groups with offerings that have internal DST or TZ references have agreed to follow the regular schedule for cumulative Windows OS DST & TZ updates. The regular Windows release provide a regular schedule for other product groups to follow, as noted in the DST & TZ Product Update Cadence policy. We hope that this will provide a more predictable way for our customers to anticipate and plan for our cumulative updates


Let us know if you have questions.


Tags: Windows, Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Egypt, Australia, ; 18,000,000 (up from 3M six months ago); 20,400,000 (up >3M)


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Announcement: Microsoft Windows August 2009 Updates to Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones

Clip art from Office OnlineCheck out Microsoft KnowledgeBase Article 970653, "August 2009 cumulative time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systems", which the Windows team just posted. 

A nod to the good folks across our company working on our effort to help manage time (particularly in daylight saving time and time zone changes) documented and followed at http://www.microsoft.com/time and over at the blog at http://blogs.technet.com/dst2007.  Lourdes is coordinating the efforts on our daylight saving time and time zone updates and releases for current products across the various product groups at Microsoft.  As noted, this is a tough job, to say the least. 

So, back to the latest semi-annual release…

The update that this article describes changes the time zone data to accommodate daylight saving time (DST) changes in several countries, as outlined in this article. This update also includes other DST-related changes, time zone-related changes, and settings-related changes. Some of these changes have occurred since the products that are listed in the "Applies to" section were originally released.

The following changes were made since the previous Windows cumulative time zone update. This update was described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 951072:

  • W. Australia Standard Time: Fixes dynamic DST table for the W. Australia time zone.
  • SA Pacific Standard Time: Removes "Rio Branco" from the display name of this time zone.
  • SA Western Time: Changes the display name of this time zone from (GMT-04:00) La Paz to (GMT-04:00) Georgetown, La Paz, San Juan.
  • SA Eastern Standard Time: Changes the display name of this time zone from (GMT-03:00) Georgetown to (GMT-03:00) Cayenne.
  • Greenland Standard Time: Adjusts the dynamic DST table for the Greenland time zone.
  • Morocco Standard Time: Adjusts the DST start and end dates for the Morocco time zone for changes after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (December 2008).
  • Pakistan Standard Time: Adjusts the DST start and end dates for the Pakistan time zone for changes after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (December 2008).
  • Paraguay Standard Time: Introduces the new Paraguay Time Zone with DST start dates and end dates after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (December 2008).
  • Fiji Standard Time: Removes Kamchatka from the display name of this time zone.
  • Kamchatka Standard Time: Introduces the new Kamchatka Time Zone with DST start dates and end dates after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (December 2008).
  • Coordinated Universal Time: Introduces the new UTC Time Zone without DST after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (December 2008).
  • Montevideo Standard Time: Fixes the dynamic DST table for Montevideo time zone for Windows XP

Registry subkey name

Display name

Daylight name

Standard name

DST start

DST end
W. Australia Standard Time (GMT+08:00) Perth W. Australia Daylight Time W. Australia Standard Time Last Sunday of October at 02:00:00.000 Last Sunday of March at 03:00:00.000
SA Pacific Standard Time (GMT-05:00) Bogota, Lima, Quito SA Pacific Daylight Time SA Pacific Standard Time No DST No DST
SA Western Standard Time (GMT-04:00) Georgetown, La Paz, San Juan SA Western Daylight Time SA Western Standard Time No DST No DST
SA Eastern Standard Time (GMT-03:00) Cayenne SA Eastern Daylight Time SA Eastern Standard Time No DST No DST
Greenland Standard Time (GMT-03:00) Greenland Greenland Daylight Time Greenland Standard Time Last Saturday of March at 22:00:00.000 4th Saturday of October at 23:00:00.000
Morocco Standard Time (GMT) Casablanca Morocco Daylight Time Morocco Standard Time Last Sunday of May at 23:59:59.999 3rd Thursday of August at 23:59:59.999
Pakistan Standard Time (GMT+05:00) Islamabad, Karachi Pakistan Daylight Time Pakistan Standard Time 2nd Tuesday of April at 23:59:59.999 Last Saturday of October at 23:59:59.999
Paraguay Standard Time (GMT-04:00) Asuncion Paraguay Daylight Time Paraguay Standard Time 3rd Saturday of October at 23:59:59.999 1st Saturday of March at 23:59:59.999
Kamchatka Standard Time (GMT+12:00) Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Kamchatka Daylight Time Kamchatka Standard Time Last Sunday of March at 02:00:00.000 Last Sunday of October at 03:00:00.000
Fiji Standard Time (GMT+12:00) Fiji, Marshall Is. Fiji Daylight Time Fiji Standard Time No DST No DST
Montevideo Standard Time (GMT-03:00) Montevideo Montevideo Daylight Time Montevideo Standard Time 1st Sunday of October at 02:00:00.000 2nd Sunday of March at 02:00:00.000
Coordinated Universal Time (GMT) Coordinated Universal Time Coordinated Universal Time Coordinated Universal Time No DST No DST

As noted in this article, Microsoft strongly recommends that DST and time zone updates be installed on all impacted systems, devices and applications to ensure consistency with current DST rules and time zone settings worldwide. Customers should review the product updates available and posted on this site and at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_prodlist for the latest and updated information of Microsoft products affected by daylight saving time.

An important note for Consumers

For those customers (consumers, small businesses) wondering "Does this mean I have to install the updates manually?" 

No.  Generally, consumers should wait for the updates to be installed via Windows Update rather than download and install these from the DLC.  And for end users who have their PCs managed by a central administrator, your IT folks will handle the distribution and updating of your PCs over the network.  (When in doubt, ask. 😉

 

Additional information

Please note that where we have heard that changes may be coming to a territory but have yet to receive an official confirmation from a government, we indicate that the changes are "not yet confirmed."

As a reminder on our cadence (outlined here and in a prior post), our product teams are have moved to a semi-annual product update cadence (with provisions for out-of-band releases as needed).  Following the Windows regular cadence for publishing newly legislated DST rules and time zone updates, our "Cumulative DST and Time Zone Updates" will be released in November/ December (to the Download Centre and via Windows Update respectively) for the coming calendar year; we also provide semi-annual updates (like this one) in the July/August timeframe as needed. 

For each, the window closes for additional updates a few months (generally four to six) prior to the release date. 

As I originally posted here, most Windows applications (and some services) reference the underlying OS for DST and time zone information, but some do not. The product and service groups with offerings that have internal DST or TZ references have agreed to follow the regular schedule for cumulative Windows OS DST & TZ updates. The regular Windows release provide a regular schedule for other product groups to follow, as noted in the DST & TZ Product Update Cadence policy. We hope that this will provide a more predictable way for our customers to anticipate and plan for our cumulative updates

 

Tags: Windows, Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST; 18,000,000 (up from 3M six months ago); 20,400,000 (up >3M)

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