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Announcement: Microsoft Windows update available for unconfirmed Pakistan daylight saving time change on April 15, 2009

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

We have reports that Pakistan is changing their daylight saving time… but unfortunately all we have are news reports at this time (as noted here on the dailytimes.com.pk site). We still don’t have government confirmation that this is happening, but will provide information based on what we have assembled from news reports thus far.

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. You should be aware of these changes and verify any meetings that occur in the country.  One challenge (as I have said a few times on this blog) is that when you install either DST hotfixes or cumulative updates, and governments make late-breaking changes to DST and TZ rules, appointments on your Office Outlook calendar and other systems could end up being be off by an hour until the problem is addressed.

As noted in several news reports, Pakistan will begin to observe to daylight saving time on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. The country will move one hour forward between April 14 and April 15 at midnight (00:00h). The offset will be UTC +6:00 hours (six hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT) instead of the current +5:00h.

As noted on timeanddate.com, the story has been less than clear…

"Pakistan will observe daylight saving time on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, to alleviate the nation’s power shortages. Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power originally proposed for the country’s 2009 daylight saving schedule to start on April 1. However, the daylight saving schedule was delayed due to weather conditions. Early in April, May 1 was proposed as another date to start DST."

It appears that the information of this change has not yet been posted to any government sites in Pakistan.

Important information to note at the moment on these changes: a hotfix is available to update Windows Operating Systems, as these new DST settings for Pakistan are not included in current DST settings. The following announcement has been posted to the DST blog:

Notice:  Optional Hotfix Available for Pakistan 2009 Daylight Saving Time

As reported in various publications, including Daily Times, Pakistan has announced the start of DST for 2009 on April 15th at midnight.  This information is subject to change as it has not been officially confirmed by a Pakistani government source. 

Microsoft has produced a hotfix to implement this change for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  If interested in downloading this hotfix, please refer to KB 970084 titled: "A hotfix is available to update the Daylight Saving Time for the "(GMT +5:00) Islamabad, Karachi" time zone for the year 2009 for Windows Vista-based and Windows Server 2008-based computers".

For other Windows versions, please refer to KB 914387 "How to configure daylight saving time for Microsoft Windows operating systems" on how to update the time zone registry key.

Public service announcement: As noted in a prior post, our product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. (For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests up to a few months prior to the release date.) But changes such as these – and without official notification – are difficult for sysadmins and IT professionals around the world to manage.

And here’s my regular advice for governments: in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.

In addition – and this is important – we suggest that entities considering the changes implement changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Pakistan; 17,90,000 (up from 3.4M a year ago); 18,000,000 (up from 900K a year ago)

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Why do I need IPv6? Where can I learn from Microsoft about IPv6 for Windows? (Your questions on IPv6)

This came in today via email (thanks, Brin)… Clip art from Office Online

"Why do I need IPv6? Is there more about IPv6 available from Microsoft? Is there anything I need to do to support IPv6 in Windows Vista or Windows 7?"

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is (Wikipedia tells us) "the next-generation Internet Layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks and the Internet." It’s the next generation following IPv4, the addressing Internet Protocol used today.

Although not widely used yet, it’s expected that IPv6 (with a 128-bit address) will soon come into its own: some estimate that we will run out of the just over 4 billion 32-bit IPv4 addresses in the next few years.  As the number of Internet-connected devices grows, IPv6 should alleviate the shortage of IP addresses with IPv4.

Just thinking: with all the talk of the US digital television transition and my experience on daylight saving time changes in the US and Canada, should there be an international transition date for IPv6 usage?  My friend, Paul, has been eager to look for a new project to take on… perhaps this is one such customer awareness effort.

Back to the present.

Fortunately, as noted on the IPv6 for Microsoft Windows: Frequently Asked Questions page, both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (which stem from a common architecture) support IPv4 and IPv6 via the Next Generation TCP/IP Stack in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. (Please note that’s not ST:TNG.)

Support for IPv6 is also included in Windows 7 and similar to what you’ll find in Window Vista and Windows Server 2008, in addition to the Direct Access feature, which allows you to connect to secure networks (like your office) via the Internet without having to VPN into the network. As noted on the page, "Direct Access is that is uses IPv6 over To keep data safer as it travels public networks, Direct Access uses IPv6-over-IPsec to encrypt communications transmitted across the Internet."

We also provide IPv6 implementations for many older Windows products still in wide use, such as Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later, and Windows CE .NET 4.1 or later. Older versions of Windows (Windows 2000, Windows 98) are not supported.

You’ll find a number of technical overviews, articles, deployment and development resources and webcasts available on the aforementioned IPv6 for Microsoft Windows: Frequently Asked Questions page.

 

Tags: Microsoft, your questions, IPv6, Internet, Security, Windows 7, Windows Vista.

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Information on Daylight Saving Time, Time Zone and related DST changes for Microsoft Windows and other products in 2009

An update on some of the recent daylight saving time changes around the world coming this year to Morocco, Pakistan, Syria and Tunisia in 2009…

image It’s been a busy time, reflected in fewer than normal postings on this blog, but happily it’s due in part (when it comes to time) that there has been little to report in the area of changes to DST and times zones.

In past years, the move from Winter to Spring in the Northern Hemisphere would signal a change to clocks in much of Canada and the States. But as you may know (unless you’re an hour late to all your meetings) that the US and Canada "Sprang Forward" a few weeks ago:  March 8 marked the arrival of Daylight Saving Time.

So here’s a look at some of the changes we’re evaluating and how they would be included in future updates in various DST & time zone product updates (with provisions for semi-annual as needed as outlined here).

Morocco: As noted last year, once again the kingdom of Morocco plans to observe daylight saving time in the country, beginning on Sunday, May 31 at midnight, and ending on Thursday, August 20 at midnight. Not surprisingly, this coincides with the start of Ramadan. (I believe that Egypt will likely make similar changes, but we have no confirmed change in that country.) You can find more information on these changes on marweb.com and this post on medi1sat.ma.

Pakistan: Last May (2008), we learned of a change to the observance of Daylight Saving Time in Pakistan that could impact customers using local time zones, including entities engaged in business in or with the region.  Unfortunately, due to the short notice at which the change had been announced, Microsoft was unable to provide updates (hot-fixes) to support the implementation of DST and referred people to this post on the changes for more details.

For this year – unfortunately once again we don’t have any clear communication on changes in 2009. Through news reports, we estimate that we will learn more at the beginning of April. Once we receive an official notification, we will look at how to bet address the changes.

Syria: We have reports that daylight saving time will begin in Syria on March 27, 2009 at 00:00:00 this year according to many sources, this article in the Syrian Arab News Agency (English), and this article from alwehda.gov.sy, the government site. Guidance will be posted shortly on mitigating the changes in the country.

Tunisia discontinues DST in 2009: Recently we learned that Tunisia will no longer observe daylight saving time beginning in 2009, as noted by the Tunisian press agency here. Daylight saving time had been observed since 2006, beginning on the last Sunday of March, and ending on the last Sunday of October.

As noted in a prior post, our product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. (For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests up to a few months prior to the release date.)

We’ve also updated our page on Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests, providing recommendations in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies. We suggest that governments should provide the following when considering changing DST or making adjustments to time zones:

  1. Ample advance notice (1 year or more) of the planned change.
  2. Official published confirmation of planned changes to DST or time zones.
  3. Concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens.

Important note for governments: Let me note that in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes. In addition, we suggest that entities considering the changes consider implementing changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

 

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST, Morocco

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Your questions: do we have to worry about the coming Leap Second when it comes to Microsoft Windows and other products?

Clip art from Microsoft Office OnlineAs I Tweeted today (no, really, I can stop any time) I saw a question today on the subject of the coming leap second, as noted in the MSN posted article, 2009 to arrive not a second too soon, from Space.com’s Joe Rao:

"Wait a second.

"The start of next year will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone’s control. Time will stand still for one second on New Year’s Eve, as we ring in the New Year on that Wednesday night. As a result, you’ll have an extra second to celebrate because a "Leap Second" will be added to 2008 to let a lagging Earth catch up to super-accurate clocks.

"By international agreement, the world’s timekeepers, in order to keep their official atomic clocks in step with the world’s irregular but gradually slowing rotation, have decreed that a Leap Second be inserted between 2008 and 2009." 

So I heard last night and saw this question today…

One Leap second will be added at the end of this year.  I wonder whether it will have impact on Windows, SQL Server or other Microsoft System. It seems that our SystemTime structure will reject the 60 second, and FileTime will ignore the LeapSecond.

"KB article  Q909614: How the Windows Time service treats a leap second and Blog "Please Look before you Leap a second" seems indicate we have not need to worry about Leap Second."

Great end of the year question.

Besides counting down "3, 2, 1, 1… Happy New Year!" to ring in 2009 in a couple of days, you’ll find more documenting the impact of a leap second in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 909614, How the Windows Time service treats a leap second (as Michael Kaplan noted in his most excellent post). 

In short, W32Time does not account for a leap second being dependent on the NTP server. Most applications and services may be unaffected, but sysadmins and IT professionals should know that the leap second is not addressed until the next time sync following the official addition/ subtraction of the leap second.  Consumers really have nothing to worry about save questioning whether or not the time is accurate as broadcast during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve when the crystal ball drops in Times Square.

Info on syncing clocks to absolute time, please see KB 816042, How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows Server 2003, and KB 884776, How to configure the Windows Time service against a large time offset.

General information on the Windows Time Service is also available in the team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/w32time/default.aspx.  More articles/ information in which you may be interested:

(Of interest: The concept of a leap second is actually in question, and an ITU working group is evaluating whether or not the process of adding/subtracting leap seconds should be discontinued.)

Anyone else have additional information, guidance they’d like to offer?  I’ll add to this post as it comes in.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, leap second, DST.

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Advisory: Information on daylight saving time changes for Mauritius and Egypt in 2008

Coming soon to our Hot Topics for Daylight Saving Time changes page, information on changes accommodating Mauritius and Egypt.

Guidance for Mauritius on Upcoming Daylight Saving Time Implementation for 2008-2009

As noted at http://www.afrol.com/articles/29955 on July 23, 2008 and in L’Express newspaper, the government of Mauritius has decided to adopt Summer Time (as it’s known in Europe, aka daylight saving time) in the island nation of over 1 million.   According to published government announcements, the country will begin recognizing Summer Time in October of this year. Official reports note that DST will begin on October 26, 2008 and end on March 27, 2009.

The post on our Technet blog summarizes the actions recommended for customers in Mauritius to address the implementation of daylight saving time and mitigate its impacts. These are the impacts primarily anticipated at the time this document was written, and the effects that customers may face are not restricted to them.

Windows Hotfix Available for Egypt 2008 Daylight Savings Time Change

The government of Egypt announced that due to the observance of Ramadan,  it has changed the end of Daylight Savings Time to August 28, 2008 at midnight.  

Microsoft has created upon request, out of band release packages for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for the Egypt  DST update, Knowledge Base Article 953732, “A hotfix is available to update the ” (GMT+02:00) Cairo” time zone for 2008 in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.” 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). 

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Mauritius, Egypt; 4,370,000 (up from 3.6M a month ago); 2,360,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 100K since last month)

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