Daylight Savings Time change for Windows 2000

What...

In 2007, the U.S. and some other parts of the world have changed the start and end dates of Daylight Savings Time. Microsoft issued a routine update for Windows XP and 2003, but as they consider Windows 2000 too old to justify support, they did not make a nice and easy fix for Windows 2000. That's there way of saying, "we don't care how well it works, we aren't making any money off you, so you should update".

They did make registry alteration files available to make this change, however. They just aren't very automatic to use.
 

Why...

Actually, you can (and probably should) wade your way through the MS website to find these files. However, as I often had to do it in the field, and didn't feel like wading through all the various pages to find these two files, I have put them here.

Why not just change the time? Well, on "real" operating systems like Windows 2000 and all Unix varients, time is a lot more complicated than that. Even if your computer says the right time, your mail may well be stamped with the wrong time. It is typically things that involve interactions between geographically diverse computers that will have a problem.

How...

Download these two small files, and run as administrator (note: IE will allow you to do that in one step, which is handy here, but a questionable idea from a security standpoint) in this order:

first (22k) (redefines the impacted timezones in the registry)
second (2k) (copies the defined timezone to the active control set. Or something like that

That's it.

Note: this process will work on XP and Windows 2003 servers, but I'd recommend using the standard Windows Update instead. I believe this update works for NT4.0. It does not work for Windows 95/98/ME.
 

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since March 29, 2007

Copyright 2007, Nick Holland, Holland Consulting

Published: 3/29/2007
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