T L Anews.com

Information for Security Concerned People

TLAnews
Search
 
 

TLAflash Registration
 
Tech Doc
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exchange and Daylight Saving Time 2007

19.01.2007

As many of you know, there will be a change next year in the transition dates for US daylight saving time. I won't go into all the gory details here, but if you want them follow this link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx This site will be updated to provide all the latest information about daylight saving time, including updates from Microsoft products affected by daylight saving time, as well as links to KB articles when they are available.

The Exchange team, along with Windows and Office have been giving this a lot of attention. We will be providing, free of charge, a solution for Exchange products in mainstream support. This solution will consist of changes in CDO to support these new dates as well as rebasing tool for calendar items that are already existent in users calendars. This rebasing tool is a server side tool. There will also be a client side tool available from Outlook. For products that are no longer under Mainstream support, these non-security updates will only be offered to customers that have an Extended Hotfix Agreement. For more information on the current support status of your Microsoft products and the Support Lifecycle Policy, please visit http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle.

Why this

In August of 2005 the United States Congress passed the Energy Policy Act, which changes the dates of both the start and end of daylight saving time (DST). When this law goes into effect in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier (2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later (2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November) than what had traditionally occurred. Microsoft is committed to working with customers to make this transition as seamless as possible for customers affected by these new time changes. We are further committed to working with others in the industry to address the broader challenges presented by this U.S. statute.

While the change in daylight saving time applies to U.S. and Canada, the change may impact customers based outside North America. Companies or organizations with operations, customers or vendors based in North America may be affected. In addition customers who interact or integrate with systems that are based in North America or rely on date/time calculations may be impacted.

What to do if you have an older system

For windows 2000 you can look at You can look at kb:914387

Time zone information is stored here:

Windows XP/2000/NT:   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones

Windows 9x:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Time Zones

 

In theory, all you should need to do is apply the MS patch to an XP or

2k3 system, export the above registry key and all subkeys and values, and then import it into Windows 2000.  I know that Windows 2000 uses the same time zone formats as XP and 2k3.  I do not know if NT or Windows 98 do, so beware.

 

In reality, all you need is the data for the TZI binary value that maps the changeover dates, and practically speaking you only need the time zone the PC lives in.

 

If you live in the Eastern Time Zone, for example, simply extract:

Key:     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\Eastern Standard Time

Value:   TZI

 

You could then use ORCA, WISE, or some similar tool to package the registry changes in an .msi for deployment.

 

You could also use this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221542

 

Although that's decidedly the hard way.

Registry changes

The best I can say is the patch modifies the following Timezones on my local XP SP2 system:
        Alaskan Standard Time
        Atlantic Standard Time
        Central Brazillian  Standard Time
        Central Standard Time
        E. South American Standard Time
        Eastern Standard Time
        Israel Standard Time
        Mountain Standard Time
        Pacific Standard Time

        All these keys have an added key 'Dynamic DST' added to them, and can be found @
         HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Time Zones

Related information


Back to Latest News

 

Author information.
Copyright © [Telecom and Logistics Associates Sàrl]. All rights reserved.
Revised: janvier 18, 2007 .

All information provided is of a general nature and is not intended to address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Although we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information, there can be no guarantee that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future. No one should act upon such information without appropriate professional advice after a thorough examination of the facts of the particular situation.

 Network Security
  
 Christian ALT  
      
As a founding member of Telecom and Logistics Associates, Christian is an expert in network security. Has performed installations over three continents and has taught more than 100 seminars on networking and security.

 He is also ISO 27001 Lead Auditor for Management of  Information System Security. 

 

Translate this page from: