Unofficial Win2K Daylight Saving Time Fix

Saturn2003a writes "Microsoft has stated that they will not be offering a patch for the new US Daylight Saving Time for Windows 2000 and earlier. Only customers with an extended support agreement can get a Hotfix from Microsoft. To get around this, IntelliAdmin has created an unofficial patch (source code provided) that will fix Daylight Saving Time on Windows 2000 and Windows NT machines."

Re:Hm...

[Shakrai]

Ford aint giving garantee for their 2000 models cars either.

And Ford doesn't get my business either. 10 year / 100,000 miles. Thank you Kia and Suzuki.

And a big middle finger to Microsoft for this move.

I've got a fix

[JerkyBoy]

Don't do the new Daylight Savings Time. It will cost more to implement than the "energy" it is supposed to save. It will probably cripple parts of our infrastructure when it is implemented.

Win2k

[QueePWNzor]

Win2k was the best MS OS ever. But it's too bad that they're trying to eliminate it, because they want the $$ of XP/Vista. It's good to know that others are trying to stop Microsoft from annoying all who do not pay them. I wonder what Gates thinks of this; extended support costs money, and he hates others stopping him from getting it. Especially if it has source code attached.

Re:Hm...

[breser]

Nope, more like the US decided to switch to metric and people complaining that Ford won't replace their English unit speedometer with one that has more prominent markings for metric. In both cases, the product still works but external factors make it less convenient. With Ford you have to look at the smaller metric markings. With Microsoft, you have to manually update the clock for daylight savings time twice a year. Neither case is a malfunction.

Re:Hm...

[fyngyrz]

Thank you Kia and Suzuki.

Warranty - and safety - are also the reasons I went with a Kia Sportage. Manufacturer support counts for a lot, the sense that they will stand behind their product. That's also why I've been an OSX user for the last few years. Microsoft would have to make huge changes for me to go back. Apple simply does a better job. There's a bonus, too; old Windows machines make great linux-based servers. :)

Re:and it's....

[camperdave]

I think it's about time that we just split the difference, adjust the clock by half an hour, and leave it there.

Re:Win2k

[Chacham]

Win2k was the best MS OS ever.

Actually, i think 3.51 takes the cake. It was a solid machine, and was the first OS with the new interface (if installed from the CD as the "experimental" interface.)

Re:My fix - avoid vendors that act like assholes.

[pixelpusher220]

I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.

Re:There IS an official fix

[Ichijo]

Or just live on GMT/UTC time. If the Australians can have their winter in the middle of summer, then Californians can have their lunch at dinnertime.

Re:DST in some countries changes every year...

[multisync]

And we don't complain to Microsoft for not providing us a fix for it.

The thing is, Microsoft has provided a fix, but only to customers with Extended Support [microsoft.com].

I don't know if there is some technical reason why Microsoft is unable to simply make it available to everyone on the Windows Update website, but I suspect this is simply another opportunity for them to keep the old forced-upgrade treadmill running.

Re:The fix

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly do not know how NTP works!
Good luck with your solution...

Re:I'll stretch it

[EXMSFT]

download and install patches from a web site operated by the government

And now for another episode of, "Good Idea, Bad Idea"

Seriously... downloading patches from a website operated by the government?

Re:Why the 3rd party patch?

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Yes, but if you aren't going to respect the Microsoft license and you are going to trust random programs you download, why stop there? Just download a cracked XP or Vista...

But they're still an asshole.

[Dcnjoe60]

[I]I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.[/I]

It's not that W2K is broken that makes M$ an asshole in all of this. It's that they have a patch available for those who have paid for extended support, but they won't release it for the general public.

Since the cost to produce the patch has already been absorbed by M$, the only reason to withhold the patch is to make people frustrated with W2K to encourage them to upgrade. When you can readily fix something, but you don't, so that people will upgrade, well, then, your an asshole.

Re:It's not like there are no other options

[bigdavex]

You are right. Let's call it a Hognocism [slashdot.org].

Re:Hm...

[breser]

And you're saying that in reply to an article about an unofficial fix for it?

Re:The fix

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you smoking? NTP has nothing to do with timezones. This won't fix anything.

Re:What about Linux?

[rg3]

Apparently, glibc handles DST using some data files that describe the time changes depending on the time zone you select. They are usually located at /usr/share/zoneinfo, and they are also usually provided by a package. In my Slackware system, the package that provides, essentially, those data files is called glibc-zoneinfo. A quick search on packages.ubuntu.com reveals that the equivalent Ubuntu package, for example, is tzdata [ubuntu.com]. So I would say that a simple update in the relevant data files and packages should do the job.