Microsoft Announces Update to Support Policy for Daylight-Saving Time or Time Zone Changes

atsim — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:16:00 GMT

As part of Microsoft’s continued focus on customer satisfaction, we are announcing a revision to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy regarding the availability of Daylight Saving Time (DST) or Time Zone (TZ) updates during the Extended Support phase.

DST or TZ updates are important because unless they are applied, the time zone setting for a computer’s clock and calendar, as well as the recorded and reported timestamps may be incorrect. This change to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy will enable all Microsoft customers to obtain these broadly distributed DST or TZ updates and help ensure their computer’s time information is accurate.

There are currently two kinds of updates for DST or TZ:

The general distribution DST or TZ releases that are intended for broad consumption and made available via Microsoft and/or Windows Update two times every calendar year
Out-of-cycle DST or TZ hotfixes

Previously, both types of DST or TZ updates were made available at no charge only for products in the Mainstream Support phase. However, to obtain any of these updates for products in the Extended Support phase, customers had to purchase and enroll in the DST Extended Hotfix Support program.

As per the revised DST policy, Microsoft has decided to make the following changes for products that entered the Extended Support phase after January 1, 2009:

General distribution of DST or TZ releases for products in the Extended Support phase will now be available at no-charge and be made available via Microsoft Update and/or Windows Update. These general distribution updates will be provided twice a year on the northern hemisphere’s fall and winter.

Customers who require DST or TZ updates outside of the general distribution of DST or TZ releases will need to enroll in an Extended Hotfix Support program to obtain a DST or TZ hotfix and pay any applicable hotfix fees.

The Microsoft Support Lifecycle (MSL) policy provides transparent, predictable information regarding the support lifecycle of Microsoft products. More information is available on the MSL Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle.

Scenarios for deploying the Outlook Time Zone Data Update Tool.

atsim — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:00:00 GMT

As with any deployment these should be tested to ensure they meet your needs and will operate in your environment. There are many variations of these possible and the examples do not take into account differences and customizations that exist across environments. The permissions, source, and command line, could also apply to other deployment mechanisms.

S.	Permissions	User Context (SMS)	Source	Program Properties	Command Line
This is a typical configuration, first program install the files (requiring administrator rights). Second executes the files now installed under the context of the logged on user.
1	administrator	System	TZMove Install Package (8.4MB) from KB931667	Whether or not a user is logged on	tzmove.exe /quiet
2	user	Logged On User	files now on machine	Only when a user is logged on	%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Office\Office12\Office Outlook Time Zone Data Update Tool\tzmove.exe /quiet
This is a variation of the above scenario where the patch from KB933146 is applied. Requires running the install packages centrally with the /extract switch to get the MSI and MSP files. Installation command line points back to a common share. This could also be wrapped in an SMS Installer or other package to copy to a known location on the clients.
1	administrator	System	MSI file extracted with "/extract" from 931667, MSP file from 933146	Whether or not a user is logged on	Msiexec.exe /I \\SVR\SHARE\tzmove.msi PATCH=\\SVR\SHARE\tzmove.msp /qn
2	user	Logged On User	files now on machine	Only when a user is logged on	%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Office\Office12\Office Outlook Time Zone Data Update Tool\tzmove.exe /quiet
This also uses the MSI taken from the tzmove installation package in KB931667. Executing the MSI directly with the quiet switch in this manner will install AND execute the tool. Requires the logged on user have administrator rights on the system.
1	administrator	Logged On User	MSI file extracted with "/extract" from 931667	Only when a user is logged on	tzmove.msi -quiet

Microsoft Daylight Saving Time & Time Zone Blog : tzmove msi deployment

Microsoft Announces Update to Support Policy for Daylight-Saving Time or Time Zone Changes

Scenarios for deploying the Outlook Time Zone Data Update Tool.