Announcement: Microsoft Windows 2009 Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones Hotfix available for Egypt, Western Australia

Once again, as has happened in the past, a couple of countries will see new changes to their observation of Daylight Saving Time (DST) , this time in Egypt and Western Australia.

A new Microsoft Knowledge Base article is up – KB 974176 – noting the hotfix now available to update the Daylight Saving Time for the "(GMT+02:00) Cairo" and "(GMT+08:00) Perth" time zones for the year 2009 for Windows Server 2003-based, Windows Vista-based, Windows Server 2008-based, and Windows 7-based computers.

Egypt has announced to change the Daylight Saving Time (DST) to end on midnight August 21st. This hotfix updates the end date of DST for the "(GMT+02:00) Cairo" time zone in 2009. The clock will move one hour backward at midnight between August 20th and August 21st.
Australia has announced the end of Daylight Saving Time for the Western Australia time zone. This hotfix removes the Daylight Saving Time for the "(GMT+08:00) Perth" time zone.
More specifically, this hotfix:

· Sets DST end date for Egypt at 23:59:59.999 on August 20th, 2009

· Removes DST for Western Australia time zone in 2009.

To get the hotfix, click here to view and request hotfix downloads.

Please note that these packages are call-in/request only packages and will not be released to the Microsoft Download Center or via Microsoft Update Services. This change will be included in the next DST Windows cumulative package released for all currently supported operating systems in December 2008 (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista).

Microsoft strongly recommends that DST and time zone updates be installed on all impacted systems, devices and applications to ensure consistency with current DST rules and time zone settings worldwide. Customers should review the product updates available and posted on this site and at support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_prodlist for the latest and updated information of Microsoft products affected by daylight saving time.

An important note for Consumers

For those customers (consumers, small businesses) wondering "Does this mean I have to install the updates manually?" 

No. Generally, consumers can wait for the updates to be installed via Windows Update rather than download and install these from the DLC. And for end users who have their PCs managed by a central administrator, your IT folks will handle the distribution and updating of your PCs over the network. 

Additional information

Please note that where we have heard that changes may be coming to a territory but have yet to receive an official confirmation from a government, we indicate that the changes are "not yet confirmed."

As a reminder on our cadence (outlined here), our product teams are have moved to a semi-annual product update cadence (with provisions for out-of-band releases as needed). Following the Windows regular cadence for publishing newly legislated DST rules and time zone updates, our "Cumulative DST and Time Zone Updates" will be released in November/ December (to the Download Centre and via Windows Update respectively) for the coming calendar year; we also provide semi-annual updates (like this one) in the July/August timeframe as needed. 

For each, the window closes for additional updates a few months (generally four to six) prior to the release date. 

Most Windows applications (and some services) reference the underlying OS for DST and time zone information, but some do not. The product and service groups with offerings that have internal DST or TZ references have agreed to follow the regular schedule for cumulative Windows OS DST & TZ updates. The regular Windows release provide a regular schedule for other product groups to follow, as noted in the DST & TZ Product Update Cadence policy. We hope that this will provide a more predictable way for our customers to anticipate and plan for our cumulative updates