Exchange 5.5 and Daylight Savings Time 2007 3

[ITfromZX81]

Hi all,

Is there any kind of workaround for Exchange 5.5 and Daylight Savings Time 2007 that is going to come along in the near future?

I know there is a hotfix available for people with extended support, but what if you don't have this? Can you pay a one time fee to Microsoft for the hotfix or will they not do this? Is there any way around this issue(other than upgrading to Exchange 2003)? What are the ramifications of not fixing this issue?

Thanks,

 

[Zelandakh]

Your meetings will be one hour out during the intervening period. Other than that not a lot.

 

[ITfromZX81]

My client also has Blackberry Enterprise server hooked up to their Exchange 5.5 Server - I'm a bit concerned this may also cause issues.

Is there any way to manually get around this? Even if for this year we had to change a setting during the few weeks that would help(hopefully by next year they are on a newer Exchange Server).

 

[fuego007]

Microsoft does not charge for hot-fixes for known issues. They may require you to pay the fee in order to initiate the process, but they will credit the fee back to you. At least that's how it worked the last time I needed to contact them for one.

When all else fails, READ THE DAMN BOOK!

 

[Griffyn]

I have a number of NT servers and 2000 servers, and you can nominate a particular server to be the master time server. That is, when you issue a NET TIME /SET /YES command, the server you're on will contact the master time server on the LAN and sync it's time with it.

With a proper set up, you only need to have one server going to an Internet time server and the rest sync to that one server. In Australia last year, the Commonwealth Games were on and we had slightly different dates for daylight savings - it was no big deal.

 

[ITfromZX81]

The problem is that as far as I have found out, Exchange has it's own internal set, so even if Windows Server is running on has the right time, Exchange 5.5 will not have the right time during the weeks that this new extended daylight saving time is going on(it will still think it is standard time during those extra weeks). Note the information in the Microsoft Knowledgebase article regarding the various exchange versions and this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926666

I'm going to try to see if I can get the hotfix from Microsoft but everything I've read indicates that they will not offer it to anyone unless they already have an extended service contract, which my client doesn't have.

 

[Griffyn]

I have never seen anywhere in Exchange 5.5 to change the time. This would be necessary if it kept it's own time.

 

[Griffyn]

you should be able to modify the timezone information yourself
have a look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

The DaylightStart and StandardStart seem to hold details of the month, week (my guess) and hour (in that order) of the Sunday in which to make the change. Record the current values, and have a play on a test server to get the right values for the new DST settings.

 

[Griffyn]

This should solve your problem (not personally tested).

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

 

[Dyadmin]

TZEDIT works too. It's a microsoft released workaround. Works well too.

 

[ITfromZX81]

I'm not sure if we are all on the same page here. Fixing the time zone for the W2K server will not fix the Exchange issue.

According to the Microsoft website, the Exchange 5.5 issue cannot be resolved the same way as for the operating system.
It says on the page that Exchange has time zone information internally and that appointments will be off by an hour during the affected dates.

Therefore the hotfix is required and they are only supplying the hotfix for extended service agreement customers.

 

[Dyadmin]

Ah, the scheduling thing. Yes TZEdit will not help with that.

This is a minor change, with major ramifications.

 

[Zelandakh]

The current advice is that Ex5.5 will suffer the problems of meetings being an hour out for the 3 weeks from real DST to theoretical DST.

Perhaps a dig at the mgt to replace a 10 year old mail system is in order?

 

[Dyadmin]

There are several workarounds you can do..

- You can use the Outlook time utility called tzmove, which changes all your outlook appointments to the new time zone. Available at MS

- You can set your OS clocks with the available patches, or the TZedit utility. Available at MS

- Grin and bear being out of sorts for 3 weeks as your pre-time zone appointments will be out by an hour. Any appointments you make after the time zone change will take into account your computer and server time, then you go through the mess again the first week of November.

- Exchange 5.5 server wide time zone edits is impossible without modifying the CDO library. There is a patch, but you have to pay MS some serious cash to get it. 4k and up (so I have heard)

- Plan to upgrade to at least Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007 (though EX 2007 is dramatically different, 64bit, no public folders-yet, etc.)

Just my 0.02 here.

 

[Zelandakh]

There are public folders in Ex2007 but they are turned off by default.

 

[dan]

The following links might be helpful:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...33-b9c8-4652-9dd8-ae0f1af62568&DisplayLang=en

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

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667

(Just posted 2/3/07)

The Outlook/Exchange update is needed to tell the client how many hours off of GMT the appointments are. If the computer's time is changed, but the client still thinks you are 5 hrs off GMT instead of 4 (during DST), all appointments made before Mar. 11 will all be off by an hour from Mar 11 to Apr. 7. Appts. made during Mar 11 - Apr 7 will be OK unless they are for dates after Apr 7.
Dan

 

[Zelandakh]

http://nickgillott.blogspot.com/2007/02/microsoft-exchange-calendar-update.html

 

[dan]

As I understand the issue:
TZEdit will fix the NT server. However, all appointments in the calendar are saved as an offset from GMT. An appointment entered prior to the Extended time zone (ETZ) for an appointment with the ETZ will have the wrong offset. The Exchange patch will fix this, but costs $4000 for those not on extended contract.
There is then a patch for workstations, and finally a patch for Outlook which only fixes ETZ appointments for calendars in your local pst file and not the ones on the Exchange server.
While upgrading to Exchange 2003 is a good option, we are not even on AD yet. There is no way to do this in the next 3 weeks. Besides that, the license cost for our 2500 users is over $200,000.
The bottom line, there appears to be no easy cheap fix.
Dan

 

[Zelandakh]

Use tzedit, get the patches installed then contract salmonella for 3 weeks.

Don't forget to repeat the problems later in the year too.

 

[Dyadmin]

lol