KB928388 DST patch and Outlook 2003 Calendars with one hour offset

[Mike Dimyan]

I've confirmed and reported issues to Microsoft in my environment with the
Microsoft 928388 Daylight savings patch and Outlook 2003 appointments, where
they appear time shifted one hour, when viewed on a computer with Outlook
2003 with the patch and a computer with Office 2003 without the patch. The
same is true when viewing appointments on Outlook 2003 with the patch and
Outlook XP (regardless of patch level).

Appointments appear offset by an hour for the time period in March affected
by the advance in daylight savings time, but I suspect more issues to be at
play, and I'm still looking into this. I would suggest holding off any
further deployment for as long as is necessary, or at least until Microsoft
can report the full ramifications of this patch in a mixed environment and
release a warning (or better yet, pull the patch and releasing one without
these effects).

A quick test to see this would be to create a 12 noon repeating appointment,
running from Jan 1, 2007 to Dec 31, 2007 and view the same mailbox calendar,
especially around the DST "adjustment" period, March 11 to April 1, 2007, and
you'll also see differences between an unpatched 2003 Client (or Outlook XP)
and a Outlook 2003 client on a patched Windows XP machine. There is no
Windows 2000 patch I'm yet aware of, so I couldn't test that OS scenario.

To err on the side of caution, all clients connecting to the same mailbox
should be on the same Office Version AND the same patch level to view correct
appointment times, and all clients connecting to the same mailbox should all
be updated at the same time.

The Exchange Server Message Store contains calendar items in
Zulu/UTC time, and I believe time translation is done at the client level,
within the OS (hence the effect of the patch) and can also be done within
Outlook's time zone setting option (which may well prove to need its own
patch).

I'm been made aware of a tool Microsoft is developing to run against the
desktop Outlook client to correct daylight savings time appointment issues. I
understand this tool will be similar to a new feature contained within
Outlook 2007. The Calendar item I'm seeing seems specific to Outlook 2003 AND
the Windows XP 928338 patch, and not to Outlook XP regardless of the patch.
However, I can't see how a tool would work, given the confusion some of us
are seeing when appointments are changed by several people, on different
Outlook versions, and different computers with, and without, the 928388 patch.

Blackberry device calendars and their impact upon Outlook also seem to be
affected to a different degree, and RIM informed me they are working on a
patch, expected in late January. I wonder how/if Windows Mobile is affected,
and what impact the 928388 patch may have upon those client's Outlook
clients' and calendar syncing.

For now, I'm advising all my clients to type the time of an appointment
into the appointment subject line, and am eagerly waiting for corrective
action from Microsoft.

Thanks,

Mike Dimyan
(e-mail address removed)

 

[davidlsharpe]

Microsoft is saying that customers should wait and deploy the Outlook
Data Update tool and the OS DST 2007 patches at the same time. As fara
as unsupported OSes go (such as Windows 2000), there is a tool
available at www.sharpebusinesssolutions.com/dst2007.htm that can
handle the DST 2007 changes for all major versions of client and
server-side Windows operating systems.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2007/up070104.htm#tz

there will be a utility available to fix the appointments later this month -
outlook 2007 has the capability built in.

 

[Mike Dimyan]

I hope the "data update tool" will be able to determine the proper
corrections that need to be made on appointments which have been input and
changed on multiple computers with and without the KB928388 patch, especially
since some of our clients can't determine the correct timing of there own
appointments.

As to the prior post, where Diane wrote "Microsoft is saying that customers
should wait and deploy the Outlook Data Update tool and the OS DST 2007
patches at the same time", I agree, but must ask why Microsoft would release
KB928388 in November before a "Data Update Tool", that isn't available yet.

I'd like to add I've observed and reported to Blackberry appointment
differences of one AND two hours in certain circumstances on patched
computers with Outlook. I'm now further concerned the Microsoft "Data Update
Tool" won't address this fully.

Deploying Blackberry device patches, due early February, along with the
Microsoft tool, yet to be released, and deploying the update tool, will leave
little time for planning and testing. I'm going to keep the scheduling for
that in my DayTimer, on paper....

Microsoft has stated they are "committed to working with customers to make
the transition as seemless as possible for customers affected by these new
time changes". If so, pull the patch or roll the update tool into it, and do
so soon, before there's further confusion with our clients.

Thanks,
Mike
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Mike Dimyan]

If the patch is removed, it may appear future created appointments will
display correctly, but appointments created in the period with the patch must
be adjusted. While that may be easy for my own appointments, for the dozens
of people in my organization who have had the patch since December, and have
added numbers of appoinments on their own and other people's calenders, it's
not that simple. Where is the advisory of using this patch in a mixed
(patched/unpatched) Microsoft Exchange server/Outlook client environment?

 

[John]

I had several appointments set between March 11th 2007 and April 1st 2007
that were time shifted ahead one hour. I removed the patch and all my
apointments within the new day light savings time period were rolled back an
hour to there correct times. I did not have to manually adjust anything. So
far I have ran across 3 users who had the patch and they had the problem.
Removing it resolved the issue for them as well. However we will need to run
the update tool when it comes out to conform to the new DST change.

 

[Mike Dimyan]

It's a good thing you don't have someone sharing your calendar with the
opposite patch situation you have, who is adding/changing/modifying your
appointments. Removing the patch corrects the offset caused by DST during the
newly extended DST period. A 12 noon appointment on a shared calendar created
by someone with a patched machine during 3/11-4/1 period would appear as 11am

 

[Mike Dimyan]

As I stated a week ago, this situation is ugly.
Please this this link, posted by Microsoftonly yesterday:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102086071033.aspx

 

[VickyS]

Okay - so I applied the patch and now MY appts are fine. However, we have
mulitple calendars in Public Folders. What do I use to fix those?

 

[Jack Spratt]

I'm concerned.

I run 2003 server standard and have 40 users RDP into the server to run
their Outlook. They are all limited users via the Group Policy I set up -
they can't download/run "exe"s. We DO NOT run exchange server. Am I to assume
that I need to change the group policy for the users then have them run this
tool under their own user id and once I've confirmed everyone has done this I
then change the group policy back?

A bit of a logistics nightmare to co-ordinate 40 users.

Or is it possible to run this tool under Admin - which doesn't use Outlook
and it will look for all Outlook files and update everyone without me messing
with permissions?

Jack

 

[EJC]

I have the same question. I successfully applied the time zone data update
tool, but it seems to only apply to my primary calendar. A second calendar in
my personal folder does not seem to be updated, and everything from March 11
on is off by an hour. Does the tool not update multiple calendars, which is
such a touted feature of Outlook? This will be a real pain if we have to
manually update hundreds of recurring appointments that are now off by an
hour!