Daylight savings patch.....recommended practices

[JoeySpills]

Hey everyone,

So, there's a seperate patch for XP WS's and 2K3 servers I'm wondering if a the patch should be added to the login.bat and provide my users with step by step instruction on how to carry it out?

What's everyone else doin? I've been sleeping on this and I just realized that this event is NEXT WEEK!!

thanks in advanced everybody...

Joe

 

[58sniper]

WSUS will install the patches on the workstations if it's installed and configured correctly.

For Exchange, see

http://www.shackelfordconsulting.com/updates.htm

There are also patches for Windows Mobile devices, Blackberry Enterprise Server, etc.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[1LUV1T]

What if you're not using WSUS?
I'm not and I have 50+ users in house. My plan is to send out mass email directing users to download straight from server \\serverA\OS Patch.exe then \\ServerA\Outlook Patch.exe .

 

[58sniper]

That would work. Of course, you have no way of knowing WHEN they are run. WSUS would certainly be a benefit here. 50+ users is a perfect environment for WSUS.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[DougP]

couple of questions regarding this.
I know XP has a check box on the "Date and Time Properties" screen. How does it know which day to do this?
Is that built in somewhere. The Date is sooner this year.
Will it change it again on the date it was last year and be two hours ahead. We have 30 PC's and laptops and 2 servers, one is 2000 the other is 2003.

Thanks for all your responses on this matter.


DougP, MCP, A+

 

[zarkon4]

Instead of installing it on 100 computers and 5 servers, I have one of the servers configured as a time server on the domain, and all computers get the time from that server. I have installed the patch on all servers and the time server gets the time from an atomic clock.

 

[crobin1]

DougP, Windows maintains information in the Registry so that it knows when to change for DST. Without the patch from Microsoft (Windows 2003/XP) or updating the Registry (Windows 2000/98), Windows won't change until April 1st when DST would normally start. Your machines would be off for 3 weeks.

Zarkon4, that only solves part of the problem by making sure the time displays correctly on your PCs. That doesn't help with calendar programs or other applications that use the time zone and start/end date for DST to make calculations. Without the patch such programs will make incorrect calculations/schedules since they will be based on incorrect DST dates.

 

[1LUV1T]

WSUS is fine... if only it worked properly. It's been widely discussed on the net how buggy it is in terms of adding and seeing all workstations, etc. etc.

 

[DougP]

There is a newer version 3 of WSUS. Is this one any better?
here is a link:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/technologies/featured/wsus/default.mspx

DougP, MCP, A+

 

[DougP]

Also one of our outside consultants said these patches are in the updates if we install them. Is this true?

DougP, MCP, A+

 

[DougP]

How can we tell if the patches are installed or not?
If we have lots of PC's can we open control panel and look at something?

DougP, MCP, A+

 

[kmcferrin]

Zarkon4, that only solves part of the problem by making sure the time displays correctly on your PCs. That doesn't help with calendar programs or other applications that use the time zone and start/end date for DST to make calculations. Without the patch such programs will make incorrect calculations/schedules since they will be based on incorrect DST dates.

If I'm not mistaken, it's actually worse than that. I believe that the DCs pass out the time in either GMT or UTC, and then the client PCs use the Time Zone and DST settings in Windows (from the registry) to adjust the clock. So your PCs would pull down the correct GMT or UTC time from the DC, but since they would have the wrong dates for the DST switch then when they adjust the clock for the time zone they will still be an hour off.

 

[DaveNamou]

Microsoft added the DST Patch for Windows 2003 and XP as a "High Priority" Patch in Windows Update website. KB931836.

If you want to use a logon script to push this patch out then here's the switches to run the patch.

[blue]KB931836.Exe /m /n /o /z[/blue]

Note that the EXE is not the actual name of the file when you download it.
Also...those are the switches I always use but are not the only ones available.

Here's a link that also helps in every other category of the DST Issue such as Exchange, Outlook, Windows 2000, etc..

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst

Dave Namou, MCSE CCEA

 

[1LUV1T]

Dave, do I put
KB931836.Exe /m /n /o /z
into a .bat file and that's all?

 

[1LUV1T]

Because that doesn't do anything (error pops up)

 

[DougP]

FYI to see if it was successful.
In Windows 2003 Server
Open Event Viewer, click System on the left
Look in the Type column for "Infomation" then in the Source column for "NTservicepack". Also it should be the date and time you did it. If you open the Event you should see this
Windows Server 2003 Hotfix KB931836 was installed.

DougP, MCP, A+

 

[DaveNamou]

Hey AO,
You need to download the patch from microsoft first.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FE-A478-47A7-B004-0277A292E90E&displaylang=en

and yes, you do have to put this in a .bat or .cmd file.
Your bat file and the EXE that you download from Microsoft should be in the same folder as well.

Dave Namou, MCSE CCEA

 

[1LUV1T]

I was referring to the Outlook Timezone Tool.

 

[blakey2]

Hi AOConsulting,

Just thought that i'd add that WSUS works perfectly fine for me.

Site 1 has around 80 w.s.
Site 2 has around 30 w.s.

Cheers.