2007 DST Changes 1

[OSUpwnsUM]

We have a mixed network of W2k pro, XP pro SP1 and XP pr SP2. With the new DST rules going into effect, we have some questions on how best to deal with the change.

Microsoft suggests registry updates (KB 914387), but many of our admins are leery of messing with the registry. It has been suggest that if all PCs include a "net time" login script to sync with our DC, there would be no need to change any PC settings as long as the DC is updated to conform to the new DST rules.

I am looking for Pros and Cons to each of these suggestions as well as any other ideas. If this has already been discussed, please feel free to call me a noob and show me that thread.

Thanks

 

[JockMullin]

Microsoft has a patch out for the DST changes. It is not a high priority update so is not pushed down via automatic updates but it is an optional software update.

See KB928388. It applied to XP & 2K3. I think you are stuck with manual updates for the 2K machines.

Jock

 

[OSUpwnsUM]

Our issue is with 2K and XP SP1 machines. There is no update for those.

My main question is, does anyone see any problems with using a "net time /domian:[domainname] /set /yes" (different for 2K) script at login to sync the PCs to the network once DST starts?

 

[crobin1]

While your method will sync the clock, not everything reads the clock for scheduling purposes. For instance, there is a separate patch for Outlook versions prior to 2007 so that Outlook can correctly schedule appointments after the change. Simply syncing the clock won't help with that. I'm sure there are other programs that read the Windows time zone information to correctly schedule things. If you and your users are OK with things being an hour off then don't apply the updates.

While I don't advocate just editing the Registry willy-nilly, Microsoft has provided the Registry entries to make and ways to deploy them without manually editing the Registry. There's also the Time Zone Edit utility (which again just makes changes to the Registry entries). I can see no reason not to deploy the changes.

 

[jrbarnett]

You could also update the XP Pro SP1 systems to SP2, then it would only be the Windows 2000 machines that were affected.

John

 

[OSUpwnsUM]

I would love to update the XP SP1 machines to SP2, but we have an older application that does not work in SP2.

I know of several other applications that need patches (Outlook, older versions of Java as well as some IBM apps), but those are not a problem. I am all for using the Microsoft provided registry entries. I've done some testing to show that they work, but we still have some admins that are afraid of it.

 

[Glenn9999]

As long as you got the proper registry information worked out, you should just be able to stick the changes in a .REG file and use that to deploy it across the rest of the older machines without manually editing the registry. Whoever would do it wouldn't even have to have knowledge of what he is doing beyond just double-clicking the file and answering "yes" when Windows asks if you want to add the information to the registry.

What is the reservation that some of these admins have towards deploying a registry change script?

 

[OSUpwnsUM]

Upon further discussion, it looks like the regedit will be the way we will go.

A few of the older admins don't like to touch the registry at all. They are afraid that every one of our PCs will crash and burn, but the registry edit is provided by Microsoft, it is not like I wrote it and missed a line. Besides, we have and are testing it before mass distribution.

 

[baldar538]

Hi,
Glad to see someone else is in a similar boat. Our problem isn't software though, but we have a bunch of oddball PCs here that freak out if you try to put XP SP2 on them. They just make a system process that ties up 99% of the CPU. Tried new drivers, bios, etc.. No luck. If we roll them back to SP1 they work fine..

Anyways, for these PCs we've been using the free tool at

http://www.intelliadmin.com/Downloads.htm

. They have a pay version that central deploys the changes to 2000-XP1 also, but we don't have enough PCs to justify doing it that way.

Problem we are having now is that Microsofts Outlook Data Update Tool only works on 2000 SP4 and XP SP2. I can't imagine a "technical" reason they did this other than to force us to upgrade, which isn't an option for us at the moment. We are slowly taking the PCs that won't accept SP2 out of production, but its not going to happen before the DST change.

 

[PKSIT]

you can use the tzedit.exe utility available from MS for the XP SP1, 2000, ME, NT, 98. there is also a script that MS provides on their KB that you can use for the 2000 machines. we have used the script and it works very well. we have also used the tzedit.exe for NT machines.

good luck with it

 

[OSUpwnsUM]

Balder

I feel your pain. I am lucky enough not to have to update our Outlook. It is only used for outside vendor email and not for the calender so there is no reason to mess with it.

Update on our plan . . . We've convinced the guys here that the reg edit is the way to go. It will be pushed out via AD and we will also set up a net time script at log in just for good measure. We tested the registry edit script on a test AD environment on everything from Win 2000 SP3 to XP SP2 and it works great. The users will not even know it ran.

 

[hunterdw]

Just shared my experience on Windows 2003 Server Forum. Maybe it's helpful for you.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1335044&page=1

--DW

 

[Excalibur1701]

I went ahead and applied the Microsoft DST XP update (931836) on a Windows XP SP1 client, and it seemed to have worked. I even set my clock ahead of time just to make sure the time jumped one hour on March 11th, at 2am.

Has anyone else had success in getting this update to work on SP1 clients?

 

[UnlimCompSol]

I was having the same issue with w2k pro. I was shocked to find out that microsoft will not supply a patch for free for this os. I did a little research and came across a program that I have implemented on a couple of w2k workstations called intelliadmin. They created a free patch for w2k pro.

when I spoke to microsoft they said it will cost $4,000 for the hotfix. I was suprise that they would do this since they knew of the problem and should have fixed it before they stopped dealing with w2kpro.

If anyone want to look a little further into this patch the website is

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

I got this link from another person in this forum so shout outs go to him.

I have deployed this patch with gfilan NSS and it runs in the background very nice.

the next question I have is the xp pro patch. How can i have that run in the background. is the parameter just /quiet?

thanks,
Malik

Malik

http://www.unlimitedcomputersolutions.com

where your problems are our solutions!!