New Zealand 2007 Daylight Saving Changes : New Zealand

Daylight Saving is coming

nzdst — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:01:30 GMT

Hi All,

In April 2007 the New Zealand Government announced an update to the Time Act of 1974. This update changed the dates of both the start and end of daylight saving time (DST). When this law went into effect in 2007, daylight savings time started one week earlier (2:00 A.M. on the 30th September 2007) and ended two weeks later (3:00 A.M. on 6th April 2008) than past years. Click here for more information from the New Zealand Government.
A number of Microsoft products required updates for the new daylight saving changes, as well as rebasing (moving) calendar events in Exchange – If you went through this process last year, then there is no further action required for New Zealand time zone updates. The only consideration you may want to check is that the updated timezone records have been applied to your Windows Mobile devices.

· Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard and Professional - KB941898

· Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone, Pocket PC Phone Edition an Pocket PC - KB941898

If you have any questions about DST, you can contact Microsoft on one of the following:

New Zealand customers: call 0800 800 004 or refer to support.microsoft.com

Australian customers: call 13 20 58 or refer to support.microsoft.com

Nick.

Entourage 2004/2008 and DST issue with Meeting requests 1 hour out

nzdst — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:09:00 GMT

Hi All,

When Entourage 2004 & 2008 users organize meetings by inviting other users who are using Microsoft Outlook or OWA (Outlook Web Access) against their Exchange mailboxes (version of Exchange Server does not matter here), then those meeting attendees may see the incoming meeting invite being an hour off. This issue is not seen if all meeting attendees are Entourage users.

Cause
This happens as Entourage 2004 & 2008 use DST information from related 'Timezones' files for users in ANZ time zones, which are not up to date with current information.

Resolution
Microsoft is working to release a fix for this issue in an update for both versions of Entourage but a final release date is not available yet. When that update is available, users can safely install it and it will replace the files which they will put on their systems as a result of applying the workaround provided below.

Workaround
Below are the steps to follow for both versions of Entourage. Only Entourage users will need to apply this workaround on their machines, no action is required by other users who are using Microsoft Outlook or OWA.

Entourage 2004

Quit Entourage (Entourage should not be running when you apply this workaround)
Back up the current 'Timezones' file in folder: Mac Hard Drive : Applications : Microsoft Office 2004 : Office (just copy it to a backup folder on your hard drive)
Download the updated 'Timezones' file for Entourage 2004 from here (extract its content before proceeding to next step)
Copy the downloaded 'Timezones' file to the same location as above in Step 2, replacing the existing 'Timezones' file
That's it, you are done, launch Entourage and every meeting you create now will not display the issue described above

Entourage 2008

Quit Entourage (Entourage should not be running when you apply this workaround)
Back up the current 'Timezones.ics' file, go to folder: Mac Hard Drive : Applications : Microsoft Office 2008 : Office, locate a file by the name of 'EntourageCore.framework', now Control-Click on it and choose 'Show Package Contents' in the resulting menu, a new window will appear, in that window go to folder: Versions : 12 : Resources : en.lproj (you will find the 'Timezones.ics' file here, just copy it to a backup folder on your hard drive)
Download the updated 'Timezones.ics' file for Entourage 2008 from here (extract its content before proceeding to next step)
Copy the downloaded 'Timezones.ics' file to the same location as above in Step 2, replacing the existing 'Timezones.ics' file
That's it, you are done, launch Entourage and every meeting you create now will not display the issue described above.

Nick.

New Zealand Daylight Savings ending on the 6th of April.

nzdst — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:09:00 GMT

Hi All,

A reminder that this year, daylight savings ends two weeks later than previous years due the law changes introduced in April last year. This year, daylight savings ends at 3am on 6^th of April 2008. For more information on products affected, patches that needed to be applied prior to daylight savings starting, guidance and other resources, please refer to the New Zealand Daylight Savings Website.

Nick

New Zealand time zone differs between Windows Vista and down-level Windows OSes - 1st of January is approaching!

nzdst — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:24:00 GMT

Hi All,

We sent this information out in September during the mad rush of customers preparing for the Daylight Savings change, however this may have fallen off the radar for customers running Vista and Outlook. Customers running Windows Vista and Outlook will need to rebase their calendars again after the 1st of January (and as close to the 1st of January as possible).

Please refer to this post for more information
- http://blogs.msdn.com/nzdst/archive/2007/09/20/new-zealand-time-zone-differs-between-windows-vista-and-down-level-windows-oses.aspx

Nick.

December 2007 cumulative time zone update for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

nzdst — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:53:00 GMT

Hi All,

This update supersedes and replaces update 933360, which was released in August 2007. This update also includes additional time zone changes that were signed in to law after update 933360 was created. If you have already deployed update 933360, read the descriptions of the specific time zone changes that are addressed in this Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article to determine whether you must deploy this update immediately. If systems are not directly affected, you can schedule deployment at the next available opportunity. We recommend that you deploy the most current Windows cumulative time zone update to guarantee the consistency of the time zone database on all systems.

Important Before you apply the update that is described in this article, be aware of potential issues that may affect Microsoft Office Outlook. For more information about these issues, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

931667 How to address the daylight saving time changes in 2007 by using the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook

Important

•

If you are running Microsoft Exchange Server in an Information Technology (IT) environment, you must take additional measures to guarantee the correct operation of Exchange Server. For more information about the Exchange daylight saving time (DST) update, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

941018 How to address daylight saving time by using the Exchange Calendar Update Tool

•

Cumulative time zone updates contain only data that has changed for a specific region or that has been added to maintain parity with other operating system versions. Therefore, if a time zone key has been deleted, some original values may not be restored after you apply the cumulative zone update. We do not recommend that you delete any registry keys that are related to time zones. On a computer that has incomplete time zone keys, first restore the time zone keys from a known good backup. Then, apply the update.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/942763

The above packages will be pushed out via Windows Update 11 of December (US Pacific Time) and when Custom Support Agreement packages will be available via connect.

Nick.

NZDST - Microsoft JVM version 3815 release

nzdst — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:46:00 GMT

Hi All,

Daylight saving time (DST) affects all builds of the Microsoft JVM up to and including VM version 3812. Microsoft has worked cooperatively with Sun Microsystems to provide a hotfix update to the MSJVM that will make it compatible with the latest changes to the observance of DST in the time zones for New Zealand, Eastern Europe (Minsk), GTB (applicable to Athens, Istanbul) and Eastern South America (Brasilia). MSJVM was shipped as part of a number of products that are currently in Extended Support. The update to the MSJVM for these DST changes is available to customers through the Extended Support program. Premier Support customers should work with their local Microsoft account team to discuss options to obtain the hotfix.

Non-Premier Support customers should contact Professional Support on 0800 800 004.

Nick.

Mac OS X: Adjusting Date & Time for New Zealand Daylight Saving Time in late 2007

nzdst — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 05:14:00 GMT

Hi All,

We've had a number of support calls from customers who are running Mac OS X and Entourage who are concerned with the guidance supplied by Apple which was to manually move the time after the 30th of September 2007.

Here is the Apple KB article - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306486

A third party workaround has been posted to the web which should address this issue - http://www.mactcp.org.nz/nzdt.html. As always, we stress that testing should always be done before rolling this out to production systems.

DISCLAIMER - This is completely unsupported by Microsoft and therefore we offer no warranty or support if you choose to utilise information in this posting.

Also see NZDST - Updates for Entourage

Nick.

New Zealand time zone differs between Windows Vista and down-level Windows OSes

nzdst — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:35:00 GMT

Introduction

Windows encodes the time zone transition dates on a yearly basis yielding the following rules for years 2006, 2007, and 2008:

	DST End	DST Start
2006	Third Sunday in March	First Sunday in October
2007	Third Sunday in March	Last Sunday in September
2008	First Sunday in April	Last Sunday in September

The definition of the New Zealand time zone differs between Windows Vista and down-level Windows OSes. Specifically, the difference between OSes relates to which time zone rule each OS returns as the currently active rule; Vista returns the 2007 rule shown in the table above while other Windows OSes return the 2008 rule.

This difference exists because Vista is designed to keep the 2007 rule as the active rule until December 31st, at 11:59:59PM. At midnight, January 1st , Vista will automatically activate the 2008 rule. Previous OSes such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 do not have the capability to automatically switch rules, so after the time zone patch under KB 933360 is applied; they make the 2008 rule active.

This inconsistency causes user-visible differences in the functioning of the Outlook Calendar on Vista versus non-Vista OSes. The below is intended to explain the end-user visible affects as well as provide some guidance on how to best plan for rebasing calendars in this region.

Example

In the following example, two weekday recurring appointments were created on fully patched OSes. Both computers had the current time zone set to New Zealand and both created the appointments such that they occurred from 12:00pm to 12:30pm local time. In the screen shots below, the green series was created on a down-level OS (and, therefore, encoded using the 2008 time zone rules for New Zealand) while the red series was created on Vista (and, therefore, encoded using the 2007 time zone rules for New Zealand).

As can be seen in the table above, this means that the two recurrences differ by how they were encoded between the third Sunday in March and the first Sunday in April. To illustrate the issue, let us now display the items on the two different machines:

Down-level OS

On the down-level OS, the 2008 New Zealand rule is in force and, therefore, daylight savings time ends on April 6th. This means that the item encoded in 2008 rules continues to occur at noon but the item encoded with 2007 rules now appears an hour too late since it was encoded under the expectation that daylight savings time is no longer in force.

The discrepancy continues until we get to the first Sunday in April, at which point both appointments return to their intended local time.

Windows Vista

When viewed on Vista, exactly the same appointments in the same store look different. Again, everything agrees except for the “delta” between the third Sunday in March and the first Sunday in April only, on Vista, it is the item encoded with 2007 rules that continues to look correct while the item encoded in 2008 rules now looks an hour early because it was encoded under the expectation that daylight savings time would continue and the Calendar is being displayed as if it does not.

As above, the discrepancy continues until we get to the first Sunday in April, at which point both appointments return to their intended local time.

Outlook Calendar Rebasing

The Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook is aware of the above discrepancy and attempts to handle it as correctly as possible. Specifically, the client-side tool will detect the OS on which it is running and behave as expected on the assumption that all appointments were created on that OS. Some examples (assuming a fully patched machine in all cases):

• When run on Vista during 2007 with the time zone set to New Zealand, the tool will assume that any appointments that lack time zone information were created using the 2006 rules and will transition all appointments to the 2007 rules.
• When run on Vista during 2008 with the time zone set to New Zealand, the tool will assume that any appointments that lack time zone information were created using the 2007 rules and will transition all appointments to the 2008 rules.
• When run on a down-level OS in either 2007 or 2008, the tool will assume that any appointments that lack time zone information were created using 2006 rules and will transition them directly to the 2008 rules.
It is worth noting that, in all versions of Outlook, all recurrences are stamped with time zone information and, therefore, there is no ambiguity in behaviour. Single instance items, on the other hand, are not stamped with time zone information on Outlook 2003 SP2 and earlier so, in such cases, care will have to be taken to review the times of all single-instance appointments to ensure that the updated calendar items are correct.

All of the behaviour described above is specific to the latest version of the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook and the Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool. Previous versions of both tools do not behave properly in time zones such as New Zealand so users/administrators should be sure to have the latest versions of the appropriate rebasing tool before starting. The latest versions of the Time Zone Data Update Tool for Microsoft Office Outlook and the Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool along with supporting documentation can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667 and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941018 respectively.

Mitigations

Here are some things to think about as you consider your plans for rebasing Calendars in the New Zealand time zone:
• It is beneficial to rebase a calendar on the OS from which the majority of single instance items were created (although care still needs to be taken to ensure that the correct updates were applied).
• In the case of Vista, users will have to rebase their Calendar a second time in January of 2008. It is recommended that this rebasing be done as early in 2008 as possible so as to avoid user confusion as late March and early April approach.
• If using the Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool, the above logic applies to the machine from which the Exchange Calendar Update Configuration Tool was run (i.e. that machine should be chosen such that it matches the most common OS deployed across the company and a second rebasing will have to be scheduled if users create appointments using Vista).

Conclusion

There are three end-user visible side-effects to the interaction of the Outlook Calendar and the definition of the New Zealand time zone on various Windows OSes:
1. When looking at appointments in late March or early April, there will be a discrepancy between the local time at which the appointments appear to start and end.
2. Users that only use down-level OSes to create/edit items on their Calendar need to rebase only once, during the fall of 2007.
3. Users that use Vista to create/edit items on their Calendar will need to rebase twice: once in the fall of 2007 and again in January of 2008 in order to transition any items encoded using the 2007 time zone rules into the 2008 time zone rules. Once this step is successfully completed, anomalies such as the above should simply disappear.

We greatly appreciate the assistance and feedback that Graham Codd provided on this issue.

Nick.

The latest version of the NZ DST Guidance Document (version 1.4) is now available

nzdst — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:57:00 GMT

Hi All,

I have updated the guidance document and this is now available for download in XPS and PDF formats.

Updates include:

Updating information on the Exchange Rebasing tool
Providing reference material on TzMove and Exchange rebasing tools
Adding links to instructional videos
Adding NZ DST Blog as reference in the Resources section
Updating downloads section to reference KB article names rather than a generic 'download' link
Adding information on the /REPORTINGMODE flag of TzMove
Updating information in the Automation section to link directly to the reg file and script as this was causing pain for customers having to re-format it.

Nick.

Microsoft DST website updates

nzdst — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:49:00 GMT

The web site www.microsoft.co.nz/timezone is being updated.

Key updates are:

· Guidance Document: This has been updated to version 1.3

· TzMove: there has been a new version of TzMove released. This is cumulative update and includes the hotfix that was mentioned in the guidance document.

· SharePoint: Both WSS V2 and WSS V3 updates have been released

· SQL Notification: The SQL Notification script that includes New Zealand has been released

· KB Updates: There have been a lot of major of updates to KB articles. You will notice a release date of the 4^th September on all new articles.

· Automation Update: The automation page has been updates

· Windows Mobile: I have added a Windows mobile page to the site