Announcement: Update for Russian Time Zone Changes

According to a recent law [link] passed by the government of Russia, Russia will change its existing time zones on October 26, 2014.

Microsoft is planning to release an update for Windows on September 23, 2014 to address this change, with details below:

1. Update 7 existing time zones to match with the new ones

New Name of Time Zone	New Display Name	Current Name of Time Zone	Current Display Name
Russia Time Zone 1	(UTC+02:00) Kaliningrad (RTZ 1)	Kaliningrad Standard Time	(UTC+03:00) Kaliningrad, Minsk
Russia Time Zone 2	(UTC+03:00) Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd (RTZ 2)	Russian Standard Time	(UTC+04:00) Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd
Russia Time Zone 4	(UTC+05:00) Ekaterinburg (RTZ 4)	Ekaterinburg Standard Time	(UTC+06:00) Ekaterinburg
Russia Time Zone 5	(UTC+06:00) Novosibirsk (RTZ 5)	N. Central Asia Standard Time	(UTC+07:00) Novosibirsk
Russia Time Zone 6	(UTC+07:00) Krasnoyarsk (RTZ 6)	North Asia Standard Time	(UTC+08:00) Krasnoyarsk
Russia Time Zone 7	(UTC+08:00) Irkutsk (RTZ 7)	North Asia East Standard Time	(UTC+09:00) Irkutsk
Russia Time Zone 8	(UTC+09:00) Yakutsk (RTZ 8)	Yakutsk Standard Time	(UTC+10:00) Yakutsk

Impact on users: None. Users who fall into these new time zones will have their settings automatically updated on Oct 26, 2014.

 

2. Add 3 new time zones

New Name of Time Zone	New Display Name	Current Name of Time Zone	Current Display Name
Russia Time Zone 3	(UTC+04:00) Izhevsk, Samara (RTZ 3)	N/A	N/A
Russia Time Zone 10	(UTC+11:00) Chokurdakh (RTZ 10)	N/A	N/A
Russia Time Zone 11	(UTC+12:00) Anadyr, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (RTZ 11)	N/A	N/A

Impact on users: Users who fall into these new time zones will need to manually switch to the new time zones, otherwise will remain in the current selected ones which will not be correct anymore for their region after Oct 26, 2014.

 

3. Merge two existing time zones to a new one

New Name of Time Zone	New Display Name	Current Name of Time Zone	Current Display Name
Russia Time Zone 9	(UTC+10:00) Vladivostok, Magadan (RTZ 9)	Vladivostok Standard Time / Magadan Standard Time	(UTC+11:00) Vladivostok / (UTC+12:00) Magadan

Impact on users: Windows will update “Vladivostok Standard Time” to the new time zone completely, and update time data only for "Magadan Standard Time" but leave the display/time zone name as is, so the user on the Vladivostok time zone won’t need to do anything (just as #1 above), but those on the other will need to manually switch in order to get the correct name. If they don’t, they’ll still have the correct time data after October 26, 2014, till Windows deprecates the "Magadan Standard Time" time zone in a later milestone, when they will have to switch. 

 

4. Create new time zone for Belarus 

Belarus is currently sharing time zone setting with Kaliningrad, so Windows will create a new "Belarus Standard Time" as part of this update.

• Time zone name: Belarus Standard Time

• Display name: (UTC+03:00) Minsk

• All other value remain the same as the current “Kaliningrad Standard Time” time zone

Impact on users: Users in Belarus who fall into the "Kaliningrad Standard Time" time zone will need to manually switch to this new time zone, otherwise will be automatically updated to the new "Russia Time Zone 1" on October 26, 2014.

Note: Applicable systems for this update will be the same as those for the latest cumulative update, and all systems will need to have the latest cumulative update installed before this update can be applied. You can find the latest time zone cumulative update for Windows here.