Day Light Savings patch

(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)

I have seen some registry hacks available - that can be utilized to change the hard-coded settings for Day Light Savings to make way for next years changes. I’m wondering if anyone has heard if Microsoft will provide their own “update” (WinUpdate or download) and will it be available in the BF console if so (even if not considered a “critical”). Or…if there has been discussion at BF create their own fixlet to offer? Thanks.

Mike

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Do you have a Microsoft KB article link for this update?

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I haven’t seen any word from MS yet. The below post came from the Patch Management Listserv. The orginal regfix was short - but it has since been revised to include numerous entries. Reason I posted the question was to hear if you might have something in the works. Quite often BF adds a fixlet for things that may not be in the normal Microsoft Update Release site - but are considered very important. Wanted to get a head start on if I might need work on something myself. But again, I would assume MS has got something in the works.

Patchmanagement Listserv Post:

(I tried mailing this correction to the list Thursday evening, but it

must have gotten lost, possibly due to the attachments it originally

had. So instead, if you want the dst2006.txt and dst2007.txt files

mentioned below, please e-mail me off-list.)

Cliff Hafen pointed out a very serious shortcoming in the previously

suggested registry fix, namely that changing the system’s time zone will

cause the fixed DST rules to be overwritten. He noted five other

registry values that also need to be changed, which I’ve included in the

following .reg file text. The same disclaimer from before necessarily

applies here, too.

================

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Alaskan Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:1c,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Central Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:68,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Eastern Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:2c,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Mountain Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:a4,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Pacific Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:e0,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

“DaylightStart”=hex:00,00,03,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

“StandardStart”=hex:00,00,0b,00,01,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

================

This will modify the current DST start and end time rules, and also

update the rules associated with each of the five US and Canadian time

zones that will adopt the new Daylight Saving Time in 2007.

For the curious, the structures within the TZI registry values are

SYSTEMTIME structures rather than TIME_FIELDS structures, and as such

have the “weekday” as the third field rather than the eighth.

Otherwise, the interpretations of the two types of structures are the

same.

Two SYSTEMTIME structures appear within each TZI value: the structure

for the time zone’s “DaylightStart” rule is at offset +000Ch, and the

structure for its “StandardStart” rule is immediately after it, at

offset +001Ch.

Since line wrap will almost certainly butcher the above .reg stuff, with

the moderator’s permission, I’ve attached two text files [DS: not

attached, e-mail me off-list instead for these files] that basically are

.reg files, except you’ll need to remove the text “(delete-this-part)”

from each, and rename each to have a .reg extension.

dst2007.txt implements the above registry changes, switching the

system’s concept of US and Canadian Daylight Saving Time to the 2007

version. It should only be applied AFTER Monday, November 6, 2006, and

only to computers in US and Canadian time zones that will observe the

new Daylight Saving Time definition.

dst2006.txt restores the current (2006) rules for Daylight Saving Time.

Of course, this registry fix shouldn’t be used as a substitute for the

Microsoft patch, but should instead only be used on systems where there

is no alternative. Once the Microsoft patch does come out, further

registry changes might be necessary on unpatchable systems to achieve

compatibility with their patch’s changes (for instance, if Tijuana is no

longer going to be included in the US/Canadian Pacific Time zone). But

hopefully this registry fix, as it stands now, will be good enough for

most of the people who need it.

Thanks again Cliff, and sorry everyone for the oversight…

  • Derek

-----Original Message-----

From: Derek Soeder

mailto:dsoeder@eeye.com

Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:34 PM

To: Patch Management Mailing List

Subject: US Daylight Saving Time 2007 registry fix

Hey y’all, here’s a registry change you can implement AFTER Monday,

November 6, 2006 (I’ll explain this below), to change a system’s

Daylight Saving Time start and end rules. To use it, just copy the text

below into a .reg file, open it using Regedit, then reboot the system.

Disclaimer: I have not thoroughly tested this, and neither I nor eEye

guarantees its fitness or promises to support it, so use it at your own

risk. That said, I believe it will work for you, but please test it

first on a small scale and tell me how it turns out.

================

REGEDIT4

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

“DaylightStart”=hex:00,00,03,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

“StandardStart”=hex:00,00,0b,00,01,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

================

This registry modification will change the DST start time to 2:00 AM on

the second Sunday in March, and the DST end time to 2:00 AM on the first

Sunday in November.

Now for my favorite part – how it works.

The format of these two registry values is a TIME_FIELDS structure,

which consists of eight two-byte fields: Year, Month, Day, Hour,

Minute, Second, Milliseconds, and Weekday. In this particular case,

Year is disregarded, and Day isn’t the number of a calendar day, but a

count of weekdays. For instance, a 1 the Day field corresponds to the

1st Xxxday, while a 5 would correspond to the 5th Xxxday, or the last

Xxxday if there aren’t 5 in the specified month.

Here I’m using Xxxday to represent the day of the week specified by the

Weekday field. Its value ranges from 0 (Sunday) to 6 (Saturday). As

expected, the Month field’s value ranges from 1 (January) to 12

(December). The Hour, Minute, Second, and Milliseconds fields are

regarded and should be set to indicate 2:00:00.000 AM as the cutover

time.

So applying this breakdown to the above registry data, we see that

DaylightStart takes on the following values:

Year … 0 (unused)

Month … 3 (March)

Day … 2 (the second Sunday in March)

Hour … 2 (2:00:00.000 AM)

Minute … 0 (")

Second … 0 (")

Milliseconds … 0 (")

Weekday … 0 (Sunday)

While StandardStart takes on these values:

Year … 0 (unused)

Month … 11 (November)

Day … 1 (the first Sunday in November)

Hour … 2 (2:00:00.000 AM)

Minute … 0 (")

Second … 0 (")

Milliseconds … 0 (")

Weekday … 0 (Sunday)

Because the Year field is disregarded, Windows will think that these

rules apply to every year – past, present, and future – so that’s why

it’s important to apply this registry modification only AFTER Monday,

November 6, 2006. Once you apply the change and reboot, Windows will

find the first Sunday in November of the current year (this year, that’s

November 5, 2006), and regard that as the DST end time. This creates a

period of time between October 29, 2006, and November 5, 2006, which

Windows will improperly regard as falling within Daylight Saving Time.

If you apply the registry modification to a system whose date and time

land within this period, expect some improper behavior.

Any time between Monday, November 6, 2006, and Saturday, March 10, 2007,

should be fine for applying this registry change.

Well, that’s all I can think to write about this; please let me know if

you have any questions or observations.

  • Derek

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

In the spring of 2007 Microsoft is going to release an update for the DST. It will be available in WinUpdate. I would assume then that this would be an available fixlet in the console?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx

(imported comment written by mattp23)

The patch is available -http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388

(imported comment written by dgibson91)

Will BigFix be providing a fixlet for this?

How about a fix for windows 2000, since MS is not releasing a patch for anything older than Windows XP?

From what i can tell, it is only a registry setting. I can create a custom fixlet for this, but was wondering if Bigfix already had plans of creating one.

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

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=914387

(imported comment written by tim_tsai)

The “Patches for Windows” sites generally do not provide content for non-Security updates, so technically this set of updates does not fall under our regular coverage. However, due to customer demand, BigFix is investigating and are looking to provide Fixlet message to deploy the updates that Microsoft has released, as well as creating additional Fixlet messages to help update certain unsupported platforms that do not have an available patch. The exact coverage we will provide has not been determined yet. More details to follow, stay tuned.

(imported comment written by tim_tsai)

Three Fixlet messages have been published to the “Enterprise Security” site to address this issue. They deploy the updates that Microsoft released through KB article 928388 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388/en-us:

ID 92838801: 928388: 2007 Time Zone Update - Windows XP

ID 92838803: 928388: 2007 Time Zone Update - Windows Server 2003

ID 92838805: 928388: 2007 Time Zone Update - Windows XP/2003 (x64)

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Just so everyone is aware, there is a patch available for Windows 2000 from Microsoft but it is not a publicly released patch and we won’t be able to do a general release of it. We are still working on building the win 2k Fixlet but it won’t use the patch from Microsoft.

Our professional services can help build you a custom Fixlet to deploy this at your company if you are able to get a hold of that patch though.

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Unofficial Patch (KB929120) for Windows NT4 and Windows 2000, I try to create custom task but alway failed syntax error, I need help to create one.

(imported comment written by dgibson91)

I created a Fixlet to change the registry settings for the Alaskan Standard Time, Central Standard Time, Eastern Standard Time, Mountain Standard Time, and Pacific Standard Time zones.

This fixlet uses the registry workaround described in

KB914387

This action has been tested on several Windows 2000 SP4 Workstations and should work on other Windows 2000 machines.

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Did everyone see this too?

Ben

(imported comment written by bdoellefeld)

Was curious if anyone has created a fixlet for NT yet.

(imported comment written by bdoellefeld)

nm, I just realized that the same reg entries for 2000 will work for NT.

(imported comment written by barbie91)

It looks like Microsoft is now recommending folks wait and apply the OS patch and the Outlook patch together. Of course, the OS patch was released last month, and the Outlook patch has yet to be released. Here is a link to a good thread on this topic: http://help.lockergnome.com/office/KB928388-DST-patch-Outlook-2003-hour-offset-ftopict918768.html

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Just a quick note on this topic. Prior to BigFix writing their three fixlets, I wrote a custom one to deploy the Microsoft patch. I sent it out last night to all my XP workstations, and as of this morning, 12/1119 machines think they are in Brisbane at +10 hours when they used to be in the Eastern time zone at -5.

I can’t find any reason why it happened, but at least it was only 12 machines :confused:

(imported comment written by tim_tsai)

Two additional Fixlet messages have been added to the “Enterprise Security” site for Exchange 2003 SP2. Microsoft released the update through KB article 926666 last week: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926666.

ID 92666601: “926666: Daylight Saving Time Update - Exchange Server 2003 SP2”

ID 92666602: “926666: CORRUPT PATCH - Exchange Server 2003 SP2”

It appears Microsoft is not planning to release updates for earlier versions of Exchange.

(imported comment written by tim_tsai)

An additional Fixlet message has just been published to the “Enterprise Security” site for SharePoint Services SP2. The update was released through KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924881

ID: 92488101: “924881: Daylight Savings Time Update - SharePoint Services SP2 - Windows Server 2003”

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Thanks to the folks at ItelliAdmin - they have written a script that works on all Windows versions (with excpetion of 95, 98, and ME). Works great. There is a silent switch for it as well. Have used it for all our 2000 servers.

http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unofficial-windows-2000-daylight.html

Mike

(imported comment written by sgreenwall91)

Has anyone done the relevance to verify if the registry changes take effect? What would the syntax be, for instance, to evalutate the following key/value/data are correct?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time

Zones\Alaskan Standard Time]

“TZI”=hex:1c,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,0b,00,00,00,01,00,02

,\

00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,02,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00