Microsoft Timezone User Interface
Jesper Nørgaard
jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx
Fri Feb 9 03:37:26 UTC 2001
I can imagine two reasons why it is sensible to make it optional whether Windows should roll your clock forth and back at the moment when daylight saving starts and stops.
First of all some "mission-critical" operations like laboratories will sometimes want to handle the update of when daylight saving starts and stops by a central server of all of the other computers, so that the change is made in a company-wide fashion.
Secondly you might prefer to do the change manually in a stand-alone PC if you know that the scheduled start and stop is no longer correct. An added benefit is that you don't have to invent a non-daylight saving zone for each GMT offset, just so that in case a country decides to drop daylight saving will not mean that you can't select that same time zone with fixed time (e.g. withou daylight saving).
Why on earth Microsoft didn't deliver the program Time Zone Editor which allows you to actually set forth or back the scheduled daylight saving for each time zone and add new time zones to your hearts content, is really beyond me. That program should have been shipped together with Windows 95 from day 1, and supported with upgrades for all subsequent flavors of Windows. Instead it was shuffled into this and that utility package that nobody knew about, and was given no support except for one brave moment when Microsoft delivered lip service (and a Knowledge base article) to a specific change in australian time zones.
You can download tzedit.exe from my web page (the Time Zone Editor) for Windows 95, which apparently work equally well for Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT and all versions in between (although I will not swear to it).
Use http://timezone50.homepage.com/tzedit.zip and ask to save the file to disk. It also contains a *.REG file with a handful of time zones representing most distinct time zones of the tz database, although it is not completely up to date. By double-clicking on the *.REG file all the time zones are entered into the registry. Then you can select the appropriate one from the Control Panel.
Regards,
Jesper Nørgaard Welen
Email: jnorgard at Prodigy.Net.mx
Programador/Analista
CIMMYT - Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo
Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard
Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz
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Texcoco, Edo. de México
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Tel.: +52 (5) 58-04-20-04 ext. 1374
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Tel. Casa: 53-10-05-95 ó 53-10-97-78
CIMMYT home page:
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Check out my free program World Time Explorer:
http://timezone50.homepage.com
----------
From: Srinivas Nagaraj[SMTP:srinivas at broadsoft.com]
Reply To: srinivas at broadsoft.com
Sent: Jueves 8 de Febrero de 2001 9:11
To: Time Zone Mailing List (E-mail)
Subject: Microsoft Timezone User Interface
<<File: ATT00000.htm>>
Hello,
I am relatively new to this discussion, and I am interested to know
your thoughts on the following.
The Microsoft Windows Time Zone User Interface allows you to
use (with a check box) daylight savings in all time zones where
applicable.
I was wondering as to why they made that a user modifiable option?
They could for example have had two Eastern Standard Time (EST)
pulled down options, one using daylight savings, and the other not
using daylight savings (for same parts of Indiana).
Is it for flexibility? or .....?
Thank you.
Srini
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