I wanted to updated you all on some important information regarding Daylight Savings in Australia; and in particular changes that are occurring in Western Australia.  In May of this year Western Australian rejected by referendum a proposal to extend their daylight savings trial.  As a result of this change there will be no daylight savings in WA this  year and for the foreseeable future.  So if your company has offices in Western Australia you could be affected by this change.

The change will affect Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Outlook and other Microsoft products.  This will also affect any third party or custom applications you may have which are programmed to adjust their clocks on October 25th 2009.  We have some important steps available that can help you proactively address the issue.  Please see below for some important things you need to know to get ready.

What is the impact of Daylight Savings Changes?

The effects can range from the incorrect time display on the clock, to calendaring problems to changes in business critical services that are time dependent.  But the biggest frustration can be with your user population.  If their clock is out an hour this can cause havoc to meetings and really frustrate your users.

What is affected?

• All Windows PC, Server and Windows Mobile Devices in the affected time zones must be updated to ensure ongoing accuracy of the internal time zone tables and correct operation of the system clock.
• Microsoft Office Outlook Calendars may need to be adjusted.  We have client and server based tools that can  help with this process.
• Microsoft, third party and custom applications will have to be reviewed to ensure they will operate correctly after October 25th 2009.

What has Microsoft done to help you prepare?

• A free out of band Microsoft Windows Operating System Update, which will keep systems current until January 7th 2010 is available for download now.  Please be aware that this update is only applicable to systems that are in the affected time zones.  In this case Western Australia and Cairo, Egypt.
• A second Windows OS update that will resolve the issue permanently will be issued as part of our cumulative automatic Windows Update on December 8th 2009.

So what do you need to do in the meantime?

• Thorough testing and planning is needed to make sure your organisation is ready for this change and that there is minimal impact to the user population.
• Please check out the Australia 2009 Daylight Savings Planning Document to understand if any additional programs in your environment are going to be impacted.
• As always we recommend you keep you systems up to date to ensure consistency of operation, even if none of your systems are affected.
• Some customers may not want or can’t install the temporary update.  So what do you do?  Well you can switch your computer systems to another GMT+8 time zone that won’t be going on daylight savings such as China (Beijing, Shanghai), Singapore or Taiwan (Taipei)

So make sure you review the documentation and make sure your systems are up to date!  And if you don’t already use it make sure you check out Windows Server Update Services.  It’s our free tool to help you control the delivery of updates to the Windows Operating System.  Service Pack 2 of WSUS is out now and includes a number of new features including support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as support for BranchCache.  Check out the details on the site!

Jeffa