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

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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.

CauseThis 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

  1. Quit Entourage (Entourage should not be running when you apply this workaround)
  2. 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)
  3. Download the updated 'Timezones' file for Entourage 2004 from here (extract its content before proceeding to next step)
  4. Copy the downloaded 'Timezones' file to the same location as above in Step 2, replacing the existing 'Timezones' file
  5. That's it, you are done, launch Entourage and every meeting you create now will not display the issue described above

Entourage 2008

  1. Quit Entourage (Entourage should not be running when you apply this workaround)
  2. 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)
  3. Download the updated 'Timezones.ics' file for Entourage 2008 from here (extract its content before proceeding to next step)
  4. Copy the downloaded 'Timezones.ics' file to the same location as above in Step 2, replacing the existing 'Timezones.ics' file
  5. That's it, you are done, launch Entourage and every meeting you create now will not display the issue described above.

Nick.