Annual Daylight Savings / Timezone chuckles

As reported in years past, I felt truly alone and un-supported when
first confronted by ‘hour out meetings’ in a large Microsoft Exchange
project. Each year I feel a little bit better as other people feel the pain. Annual updates like these are part of my therapy.

This year I was delighted to discover the complex framework sitting behind this seemingly benign announcement from Microsoft.

Important Announcement:
Be ready by March 30th for the new daylight saving calendar    
This year daylight saving is ending one week later in all states except
WA, QLD and NT. The change will affect Personal Computers, Servers
running Microsoft® Windows®, Mobile Devices running Windows Mobile®, as
well as Microsoft® Office Outlook® calendars. By having Automatic
Updates activated on your Windows PC, your computer will take care of
changing the time automatically. Click here before March 30 to make sure you’re ready.

Clicking there resulted in these buried treasures:

• If you have a complex environment (for example, two or more servers)
  you are advised to engage a suitably qualified IT professional to carry
  out the update!!

• Click here to update this computer. For information on updating your Windows mobile phone, click here and Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, click here.
• A ‘SIX STEP’ wizard including this little gem ‘print your calendar for the periods 30th March 2008 to 6th April 2008
  and 5th October 2008 to 26th October 2008 before you download and
  install the Time Zone update’

And to think I busted my guts trying to convince various Product
Managers to work together and find a way to put this ‘variable’
information in some central place (ie the internet) rather than bury it
in hidden areas of every single device / operating system combination.
What were Daniel and I thinking – what a pain in the …?

Fang – Mike Seyfang