Windows Servers and Daylight Savings Time

[ShowMe]

With the new changes to DST in the US I'm tasked with making certain all of our servers are set up and ready to go.

For those of you not familiar with this problem I point you to http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_topissues#a4


To save some of you admin types some time here is a simplified "order of events" I'm working on. Any suggestions and/or corrections are welcome!

1.) Apply updates to Windows operating systems on Windows Servers. These updates can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836

2.) Apply updates to Windows operating systems on individual workstations. These updates can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836

3.) Update user Calendars using the MSEXchange Calendar Update tool. This tool will update the appointments in each users calendar. It can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A9336886-4B28-4010-9416-
36D38429438D&displaylang=en

**NOTE**
MSEXTMZ.exe and MSEXTMZCFG.exe will NOT run correctly if they are installed in the default installation directory (i.e. c:\program files\msextmz). To workaround this problem, please install the two applications into the following directory: C:\msextmz



3. (Alternate) Run the Outlook time zone on each users workstation, or push to tool out to every user. Toll can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e343a233-b9c8-4652-9dd8-ae0f1af62568&DisplayLang=en

Instructions for use:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667/


From what I've read you can run the Exchange tool on the server itself & fix all the calendars, or you can run the Outlook tool on each workstation and fix the problems. You don't need to run both, but as I said...corrections are welcome!

[BenK]

From what I've read you can run the Exchange tool on the server itself & fix all the calendars, or you can run the Outlook tool on each workstation and fix the problems. You don't need to run both, but as I said...corrections are welcome!

You can't run the Exchange Calendar tool on the server, you have to do it from a a PC with Outlook 2003 or 2007 client with admin rights.

We were a bit too conscientious and updated Windows when the patches were first available now completely automating calender updates isn't an option since for one-time events we don't know if they were created before or after the patch.

[Starthinker]

Why would a calander need to be updated? I mean, if an appointment is at 3:00pm wouldn't it still be at 3:00pm regardless of whether daylight savings time is in effect or not? It's not like it's going to switch to 2:00pm when you switch over.

[BenK]

Why would a calander need to be updated? I mean, if an appointment is at 3:00pm wouldn't it still be at 3:00pm regardless of whether daylight savings time is in effect or not? It's not like it's going to switch to 2:00pm when you switch over.

Actually that's exactly what happens. I have a meeting booked for March 14that's at 1:00 PM, my Calendar tells me it at 2:00 PM at the moment.

The calendar patch will, for reoccurring meetings, look at the TZ stamp and correct them. For single instance meetings there is no time stamp and can only assume the meeting was created under old TZ rules and move the appointment back 1 hour.

[kevin]

calendar programs typically store events in Coordinated Universal Time, and typically as an offset of seconds from a set point in the past (called the epoch).

This allows the events to be locally adjusted for things such as a user changing time zones. For example, if I say I'll call you at 1pm your time. Which is also currently 1pm my time. And I fly to a time zone an hour ahead, i still want the notification at 1pm YOUR time, not 1pm my time.

[BenK]

Outlook/Exchange must not do that, it's totally screwy.