Tag: Announcements

As I tweeted tonight on Twitter and noted earlier this week, daylight saving time ends this weekend in much of North America. 

As we’ve noted online, in the United States the Energy Policy Act of 2005 introduced changes to the start and end dates of DST, which began in 2007.  (Another benefit of the current administration.)  Now, DST in North America is observed across most of the United States as well as Canada from the second Sunday in March through to the first Sunday in November.

In 2008, DST ends later than in years prior to 2007, at 2:00AM local time on Sunday, November 2. This results in a new DST period that is approximately three to four weeks longer than in previous years.  It also means that you’ll get an extra hour of daylight to trick or treat, or for my friends in Canada, Halloween Apples.

For the most part, that means many of you in the States and Canada will get an extra hour of sleep.  Or an extra hour to club and dance, late night sushi at Hidekazu Tojo’s, watch the last weekend of political skits on SNL live, play Halo 3 on Xbox Live or, like many of us old, married guys on Facebook, just sleep. 

Whatever you do, remember that "time is a precious thing. Never waste it."

That is, unless you live in Arizona and Hawaii, or Saskatchewan and parts of northern British Columbia.  A few US territories don’t observe DST either, including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the delightful US Virgin Islands: these areas stay on standard time throughout the year.

Visit http://www.microsoft.com/time for more details.

If you have a PC, ensure that you have applied the latest updates (more info at the link above).  For Microsoft Smartphone or Pocket PC owners running Windows Mobile 5.0 or earlier versions, you should have already received the required update from your carrier or installed them earlier this Spring from our Windows Mobile site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/daylightsaving/default.mspx.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, 4,880,000 (up from 4.3M a month ago); 1,940,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 200K since last month)

http://tinyurl.com/69y6cr

Hopefully you survived the end of European Summer Time and Moscow Daylight Time on Sunday (as I posted this weekend).

Keep in mind that daylight saving time ends this weekend in much of the United States and Canada.  The difference in the changes between Europe and North America could cause some confusion… so watch your cross-Atlantic and Pacific meeting times this week.

As we’ve noted online, in the United States, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 introduced changes to the start and end dates of DST, which began in 2007. Now, DST in North America is observed across most of the United States as well as Canada from the second Sunday in March through to the first Sunday in November. In 2008, DST ends later than in years prior to 2007, at 2:00AM local time on November 2 in 2008. This results in a new DST period that is approximately three to four weeks longer than in previous years.

Do you have to apply any updates to your computer?

It’s likely that there is nothing more to do: as noted in this article, Microsoft strongly recommends that DST and time zone updates be installed on all affected 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.

Keep in mind that updating clocks around the house and office will be a bit more manual.

Microsoft product updates and release schedule for daylight saving time and time zone changes: Most Windows-based applications (and some services) reference the underlying operating system for daylight saving time and time zone information. However, some applications and services do not. Microsoft Windows has established an annual update schedule for daylight saving time and time zone as outlined here. Many of our product teams also follow a similar annual product update cadence, with provisions for semi-annual cumulative updates as needed. For each update release, the window closes for additional updates a few months (generally four to six) prior to the release date. The regular Windows release provides a regular schedule for other product groups to follow.

Following the Windows regular cadence for publishing newly legislated daylight saving time rules and time zone updates, our “Cumulative DST and Time Zone Updates” are scheduled for release each November – December (to the Download Centre and to Windows Update respectively) for the coming calendar year. When needed, Microsoft product groups may also provide a semi-annual update in the August – September timeframe. The product group will also publish the new or modified time zone information (TZI) keys in an update to Microsoft KB article 914387 for IT professionals and systems administrators who may need that information. We hope that this provides a more predictable way for our customers to anticipate and plan for our scheduled product updates as they are published.

For more information, visit Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center at http://www.microsoft.com/time.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, 4,880,000 (up from 4.3M a month ago); 1,940,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 200K since last month)

http://tinyurl.com/58zh4p

In addition to the end of Central European Summer Time this weekend… the Russian News and Information Agency, Novosti, announced this weekend (October 25) that daylight saving time ends in Russia this Sunday “when the country will put clocks back one hour, giving people extra hour in bed.”

Nice to know that Novosti advocates sleeping in. ; )

“At 3:00 a.m. local time on Sunday clocks will be changed to 2:00 a.m. The changeover will begin with Russia’s easternmost territory of Chukotka and move westward through eleven time zones to the enclave region of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. Most of Europe will also change their clocks, although North America will wait another week.”

“Most computers will automatically adjust to the time change, but clocks and household appliances that show the time will have to be adjusted manually.”

Yes, and current versions of the Windows operating system should not require any change, as the DST and time zone settings for Russia are unchanged in 2008 from previous years.  Much of Russia follows Moscow Daylight Time (UTC +4:00h) when Russians start to observe daylight saving time on the last Sunday of March, and then follow Moscow Standard Time (UTC +3:00h) when they end DST on the last Sunday of October.  These changes are the same as the dates for the start and end of European Summer Time. 

Although it’s been reported that there was some discussion in Russia of discontinuing their observation of DST, no changes by the government have been decided as noted in my previous post.  From what I have been told, this has been discussed by the Russian parliament many times over the past several years, but no changes have been made.

For more general information from Microsoft Russia, check out the search results on microsoft.com.

[Added 102708] Remember: daylight saving time ends this weekend in much of the United States and Canada.  The difference in the changes between Europe and North America could cause some confusion… so watch your cross-Atlantic and Pacific meeting times.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Russia; 4,880,000 (up from 4.3M a month ago); 1,940,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 200K since last month)

http://tinyurl.com/5pnv8h

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.