DST 2007 Changes & Entourage 2004 for Mac

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I know a lot of users out there use Entourage 2004 as an Exchange Client and are thus concerned about upcoming DST Changes in March 2007. They want to know how Entourage will handle that change and what do they or their Exchange Server Administrators need to do. Here are some important points I wanted to share in this regard.

1. Earlier in 2006 Apple made changes in its Mac OS X (in 10.4.6 Update, look under 'Other' section) so that Mac OS X is aware of new DST 2007 changes.

2. Entourage 2004 at that time wasn't updated/aware of those changes, thus users were seeing the issue as described in KB: 924606

3. Microsoft released Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.3 Update (see KB: 930402) recently to resolve that issue, so now Entourage 2004 is aware of DST 2007 changes, and thus you don't see the issue in KB: 924606.

4. If you are a consumer level user, who uses Entourage with POP/IMAP/SMTP type of accounts, you are good, issue is taken care of for you, BUT if you will exchange meetings with another user who uses an application to handle meetings which is not up to date or aware of DST 2007 changes then you or that user may still see 'meeting times not correct or off by an hour' issue.

5. This same issue will also be experienced by Entourage users who connect to mailboxes on an Exchange server, IF the Exchange server and other users (Entourage and Outlook for Windows) are not updated to be aware of DST 2007 Changes. They can test this right now to confirm this behavior with an Entourage user who has installed 11.3.3 Update and working with other Outlook users who are not updated.

6. Thus we advise customers to follow the same strategy which is outlined here, i.e. when they upgrade their other clients using Outlook for Windows (which happens after server upgrade), they can then upgrade Entourage clients as well, i.e. install 11.3.3 Update.

7. Another important point to keep in mind is that Entourage clients updated with 11.3.3 Update will work fine today but issues will come up only when they interact with clients which are not updated with DST 2007 changes. Thus in order to make sure that everyone works fine, the updates need to happen in suggested manner, i.e. severs first and then clients.

8. The 11.3.3 Update will make sure that Entourage handles all new meetings which span during the new DST time period properly. For meeting invites sent out prior to the 11.3.3 Update and in the new DST window, Entourage will not send meeting updates to announce the adjusted times. As long as the Outlook attendees apply the upcoming patch and Entourage users are up to date, this should not be an issue. They will all have their events adjusted consistently. For attendees using an application unaware of the new DST rules, the meeting times will be off for these events. Entourage product group will not be releasing any client side Update Tool either like you will have for Outlook for Windows. If you are concerned about this specific issue as this may impact your Entourage users working with other internal and external users, we advise to test and use the Time Zone Update Tools (when they become available). The Exchange server side version specifically would be better in my view. Using that Exchange Server Administrators can then take care of the issue with existing meetings in Entourage users' calendars.