Geez Microsoft! W2K, NT, and DST issues.

[GomJabbar]

In 2005 Congress passed and the President signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which, among many other things, changed the dates on which Daylight Savings Time is started and ended, increasing its duration.
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Microsoft has explained their policies with respect to these changes and their products. If you are running Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 then the update is available through Windows Update. It's worth running a manual Windows Update to make sure that you have installed it, even though Microsoft had planned to make the update "Critical" at some point in order for it to be installed under Automatic Updates.

If you are running Windows 2000 then you can get an update only if you have a contract that has Extended Hotfix Support, which is not a standard support feature. If you are running other operating systems, such as Windows XP SP1 or Windows NT, sorry, no update.

All Windows versions can also be updated manually by the user with some registry hacking or the use of the tzedit utility as defined in Knowledge Base Article ID 914387. Both processes look somewhat involved, but the tzedit process less so.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2084096,00.asp

Here is Microsoft's "solution" for W2K and NT users - manually hack the registry or download Time Zone Editor and manually edit the time zones! Why not release a Windows Update that updates the time zones for W2K and NT?


Microsoft: How to configure daylight saving time for the United States in 2007

[tomh009]

Personally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to offer updates only for supported operating systems. But then I work in the software business ...

[GomJabbar]

I agree to a point. But not on this point.

Case in point: My ThinkPad 600E passed down to my daughter has W2K installed. Works just fine. Why would I want to buy XP for a 600E at this point? I am certainly not ready to retire a perfectly good, working laptop either. Requiring end users to manually update time zone information is a bit much for operating systems that are still very much in use.

[tomh009]

Fair enough. But where do you stop? There are still people running Windows 95 out there, and probably even Windows 3.x.

Would you pay for a Windows 2000 support contract (were those to be available) for your daughter's 600E in order to get updates like these?

[GomJabbar]

Would I pay for a Windows 2000 support contract? I doubt it. Of course, it would all depend upon the annual cost. In my case, I will be doing the manual update. However IMO, not all users are up to this task (or even aware that it is an issue).

I admit, I am not a programmer, but IMO this particular issue is easily dealt with by Microsoft. The bulk of the work has already been done to apply the update to XP. How much more effort, if any, is required to add this to the available W2K and NT updates? I do not see much pain on Microsoft's part. Only their 800-pound nudge to a new OS (yeah, I'm exaggerating a little).

[tomh009]

It may not seem much ... but you have to take into account all the minor versions, different editions (pro, server, enterprise), service packs, hotfixes, different languages. Even if the actual fix development might be easy, I think that comprehensive application to all the code branches, plus testing in the variety of hardware environments would easily consume multiple man-months (and most likely man-years) of effort. And that's before you have to support people applying this update on ancient OS installs on probably even more ancient hardware.

We struggle with this type of issue on a regular basis, and the reality in this business is that at some point you just have to notify your customers and then pull the plug on that old version.

There is, sadly, no free lunch ...

[GomJabbar]

Since Microsoft posts a registry hack for applying the update, couldn't they just make a Windows Update that applies these registry settings (or launches a .reg file)? It's not like they need to make a .dll or anything - right? Or am I mistaken?

[Thane_Bitter]

Since Microsoft posts a registry hack for applying the update, couldn't they just make a Windows Update that applies these registry settings (or launches a .reg file)? It's not like they need to make a .dll or anything - right? Or am I mistaken?

I agree that Microsoft probably could do that, after all the changes are not that complex, but support (either short or long term) has never been all that great. Still given the number of Windows 2000 pro/server in use, it would have been nice considering the DST changes had been proposed if not ratified before product support expired; Microsoft chose the safe and easy approach.
I have tried the registry hack and it does work, however one must manually access the "Time Zone" tab and cycle their selected time zone for the settings to take effect. This is because the registry change only corrects the rules of how and when daylight saving time begins and ends; it does not actually apply the changes.
Fortunately some 3rd party developers have provided an easy to use patch which will update all the effected time zones. I have tested personally tested the program and it works very well, still its advisable to cycle your DST zone to ensure the new changes have been applied.
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/0 ... light.html

[cpn]

Microsoft's tzedit utility has been around for ages, and it's quite trivial to run it and make the change. I have 6 WIN2K servers still, and it took me all of 20 minutes to make all the changes. This isn't a bug in the OS or something broken. This is a change that our esteemed congress made and any beef's should be directed to them. I complained to my congressional delegation when this bill was being debated. My windows servers aren't the only thing affected, I have routers and other devices that automatically switch. I took the step of just switching all of those to use UTC time instead.