Microsoft Charging Businesses $4K for DST Fix 395
eldavojohn writes "Microsoft has slashed the price it's going to charge users on the daylight saving time fixes. As you know, the federal law that moves the date for DST goes into effect this month. Although the price of $4000 is 1/10 of the original estimate Microsoft made, it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for. From the article: 'Among the titles in that extended support category are Windows 2000, Exchange Server 2000 and Outlook 2000, the e-mail and calendar client included with Office 2000. For users running that software, Microsoft charges $4,000 per product for DST fixes. For that amount, customers can apply the patches to all systems in their organizations, including branch offices and affiliate.' The only thing they can't do, said a Microsoft rep, is redistribute them."
Screw 'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screw 'em (Score:5, Informative)
Hickup? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Screw 'em (Score:5, Informative)
As an engineer who is right in the middle of helping our customers make the changes necessary for the DST fix, it is much more complicated than that.
First, you have all of the servers and clients which rely on one another. The biggest effect is on mail - Exchange/Outlook/OWA.
Second, you have to do it in the right order, at about the same time. If you update the server, then clients who schedule appointments will be off until they update.
Third, you've got software which calculates various things based on that date. Think financial transactions, etc.
I've blogged about the tool [cornetdesign.com] we have to help customers figure out what has to be done.
I wish it was as easy as just updating a script, but when you have to coordinate that change across 10s or 100s of thousands of servers, clients, etc, it's not an easy task.
And let's not forget Microsoft isn't the only one having to make changes. Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Blackberries - they all have changes that have to be made. I'll personally be glad when this is all done. Ugh.
Re:Screw 'em (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is Windows so much harder? Didnt they do it properly?
Re:Screw 'em (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Screw 'em (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, that's not really the problem. It doesn't matter what the hardware clock is set for, UTC or local time. In any sane installation you're only going to use the hardware clock until you sync with the NTP servers anyway. The local time is still going to change on a different date than the OS is configured for. If you have Linux or UNIX boxes and keep the hardware clock set for UTC, you're STILL going to need to fix the time zone setings for the correct DST changeover dates, otherwise all local times will be off by an hour between the new changeover date and the old one. It's not a clock thing, it a time zone thing. We're having to apply patches to every single box in our infrastructure -- that's around 15,000 systems, not including desktops. Those add another 100K or more. We've had to patch Slowaris, Linux, HPUX, AIX, and a few flavors of Windoze, and that's just the servers. Then there are patches required for Java and a host of other crap, don't ask me why they don't just use the damn system clock.
The issue here is not the DST patch, it's the fact that Micro$loth was charging $40K for the Windoze 2000 patch. They justified it because W2K is officially out of support for patches - it's EOL or EOSL, I don't remember which becuase I pay very little attention to Windoze server issues.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Updating the timezone files on a Unix OS is trivially easy and can be scripted over ssh normally.
With Windows it's a *lot* harder because it really doesn't want to use UTC.. it always tries to start from local time and convert to it, and it does in fact get it wrong for about 6 months of the year (known bug, been there since
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah. It's SOL.
I love Microsoft. First Vista, now this. They're making Sony look skilled at navigating the shoals of corporate error. Of course, it is important to remember who really fucked up: Congress, with this whole idiotic idea.
non free is like that. (Score:4, Insightful)
all Linux had to do was update its zone info stuff. Why is Windows so much harder? Didnt they do it properly?
As an end user, it was even easier. All I did was apt-get update/upgrade.
The difference between the free and non free worlds is never more glaring than when you "upgrade". Because non free companies don't trust each other or their users, they can't really co-operate. When they have to co-operate, things get sticky. Mechanisms, like the Windows registry, are so bad that it's easier to wipe and reload than it is to actually update software. What's a pain for individual users is multiplied by thousands for businesses and then compounded by the number of applications updated. A whole industry exists to help banks and other businesses do trivial things like change out versions of text editors and mail clients on ordinary workstations. It's a process that's excruciatingly manual, bandwith intensive and slow, with each person able to do less than ten machines a night. Add some smoke an mirrors timing "security"* into the mix and you have something even worse.
*-there is no security on a platform with a one in four botnet ownership. The pain and expense are all for nothing.
upgrading the bank. (Score:3, Insightful)
Old troll Bungi doubts me:
"It's a process that's excruciatingly manual ... with each person able to do less than ten machines a night "
Bullshit. Do you even *believe* this crap you write? You've never had a job in a real company with more than 100 machines, so do us all a favor and just don't share your opinion on things like these. OK? Thanks.
Yes, Bungi, I've actually been on a Windoze upgrade slave gang for a fortune 100 bank and what I describe is how I remember it. They had some of the automated
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Second, you have to do it in the right order, at about the same time. If you update the server, then clients who schedule appointments will be off until they update.
Huh? How does that happen, assuming you're a good boy and using timestamps in UTC in the first place? You know, the ones that look like "Sat, 3 Mar 2007 08:06:08 -0800 (PST)", the ones you find in e-mail headers for example?
If Outlook can't cope with that, how can it cope with people in different offices with different timezones? Or people with
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is when that gets interpreted to the local machine.
Let's say you schedule the above meeting during the DST change. If I don't have the update, when I get the alert, it will be an hour off because the calculation to local time will take into account the DST rules for you, but
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Screw 'em (Score:4, Insightful)
To add to the problems, different computers and programs have been patched at different times. What if someone with a patched computer sent out a meeting request that had the UTC time and I received it on a computer without it? My computer shows the meeting an hour off from the sender's computer. When I now patch my computer, I don't know whether to adjust the meeting time or not (assuming I didn't know the patch status of the sender's computer). There's not much you can do to avoid these issues, so people are trying to get the word out that you should confirm times for the next few weeks instead of assuming the program is displaying the intended time.
Go Linux! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to say this without sounding like a zealot, but these kinds of things are nothing but good for Free Software. This patch should be nothing more than an edit to a single configuration file (and if it's not, then that's another problem), but you can't download that change freely or give it to your friends? I can understand - even if I disagree - with not giving away your applications. I cannot be made to understand, though, not giving away trivial bugfixes.
Re:Go Linux! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, if there isn't, any half-assed geek could write one and distribute it for free.
As the guy said, this is -good- for FOSS. It highlights the kind of BS that you'll never have to put up with from FOSS.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Go Linux! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Go Linux! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sun offers patches for Solaris 8 [sun.com].
Heck, last week I found some Documentation discussing manual workarounds for Java 1.1 (Written around 2005, when several nations first passed their DST changes); although I can't find the link now, and I think you need a Sun Support Contract to view the documentation .
Government provides patch at no charge (Score:2)
The source for all of the patches is the timezone data published through the US NIH ftp site. (why National Institutes of Health - no idea, but this is the authoritative source). This data is published in System V zonedata format, ready to compile with your Unix's zic(1) command.
You're done.
If your serv
free patches are available (Score:5, Informative)
Re:free patches are available (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really inaccurate story. (Score:4, Informative)
They also provide a variety of workarounds (registry files you can apply, and scripts to apply to a large number of machines remotely) for Windows 2000. If you don't like that, there's unofficial patches as well (http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unoffic
Yay for overblown stories!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Really inaccurate story. (Score:4, Insightful)
MS has free patches for all current OSes as well.
MS wins this round.
And "System Clock"? You mean the thing on the motherboard that ususally knows knows NOTHING about times zones or DST? And if it does then ALSO requires a patch to work right now? How will that help in any way?
Wow, thieves (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This service is not the same, this is actual patches to the applications for those that dont want to make the fixes any other way. By the sound of it, this is quite generous - the $4,00 charge only applies to applications out of their 5 year support period.
Re: (Score:2)
of course, I would be using the unofficial patch (http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unoffic i al-windows-2000-daylight.html) that costs nothing, but hey! free money is nice.
If you have a problem with win2k because of microsoft's efforts to kill it (like not releasing patches like this, making software that is allegedly incompatible (like AOE3), you can count on there being a free patch out there to fix the problem.
Some of the design
Re: (Score:2)
If not, then it isn't free money.
innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Down with DST! (Score:5, Funny)
I've always felt that if we could harness all of the time and energy software developers and IT departments have spent over the years working on DST-related issues in software and apply it to some other purpose of good, we'd all be driving around in flying cars and taking vacations on the moon by now. It is 2007, after all. You know, the future?
That's right. I'm blaming the state of the world on DST.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I think we should standardise on DST. I mean, I live in the UK, and right now it's getting light at about 7am and dark at about 6pm. If we were on DST, that would be 8am and 7pm, which ties in much better with the way most people want the day to run. It works out the same way almost all of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
One thing is certain: the current method of adjusting the time twice a year is the worst and most expensive solution to a very trivial problem, especially in this day and age.
Re:Down with DST! (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing I learned most from my experiment, however, is that it takes a lot of will power to get up earlier. Most people simply do not have the will power to get up and be in bed an hour earlier. And sadly, that's the reason we spend so much time, money, and effort on DST. Just to trick lazy people into getting out of bed an hour earlier. It's also the reason why a permanent year round DST (which I've seen some people advocate) is doomed to fail. People would just adjust and do everything an hour later (and then we'd need a 2 hour DST). Only the constant switching keeps them in line.
So, while I personally despise DST as a ridiculous concept, it does have its uses.
there are free utils to patch this (Score:5, Informative)
First link under "freeware downloads".
Nothing to see here. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know in Soviet Russia that work was done for free for the betterment of ones comrades, but this isn't Soviet Russia quite yet. Companies charge you when they provide a service for you.
Re: (Score:2)
This is what happens when you have a monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
TZEdit (Score:4, Informative)
Sun's worse - $10k/server, $150k/max (Score:2, Informative)
We're just modifying the timezone files with zic.
As much as I dislike MS, they're not alone in the highway robbery department here.
Re: (Score:2)
DST patching costs too much (Score:2)
The amount of downtime we've endured in our company is horrendeous because of this DST change. We have no choice but to install these poorly tested patches.
Re: (Score:2)
Its an expense just like everything else (aka, salaries, software, etc...)
Pricy? (Score:2)
Well, it's not a bug fix. The products work to spec and have done so throughout their product life and general support, and right now they're in a "security/critical fix only" extended support. If I had to put programmers to update anything else, I'd want to get paid. I don't know how many takers they'll have on this offer, but to a large corporation $4000 for t
Relatively Inexpesive (Score:5, Insightful)
So that includes:
Windows 2000 Server straight DST patch
Windows 2000 CRT DST patch (Never heard of that one? See here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932955/en-us/ [microsoft.com] and here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932590/en-us/ [microsoft.com]
Exchange running on W2K
Visual Studio 6.0 patches (I believe...)
So $4000 to cover *all* unsupported systems, and to have a human to call and say "Your patch screwed up my server" and have them fix it, is to be cliche, Priceless
..or just DIY (Score:4, Informative)
Three steps.
1. Create
2. Create
3a. Create GPO to import reg key and run VBScript on Win2k machines at Startup.
or
3b. In absence of AD, modify script to copy itself and
If you're such a small organization that you don't have an I.T. group.. then.. it's probably simple to use TZEdit to update your piddly network.
For fun, you can trick out the script to make sure it only runs once.
4 ground for a DST patch? (Score:2)
Oh snap...
Not so Crazy... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, that's certainly not the first time F-22's have flown across the pacific, and they never had that problem before. It was because of the DST patch to their systems, the engineers skipped the regression tests that involved the dateline because it was just a patch for the US timezones. Look what happened.
So, while it may seem simple enough to change the DST handling in MS Windows, don't count on it.
Whenever you mess around with time, it is easy to create unexpected results. (cue time-travel jokes)
Microsoft STDs (Score:2)
But what is really impressive, is that I'd just found this as something natural for microsoft, and it took me a whole 5 seconds to realize that the english acronym is different. It really says a lot about my perceptions on Microsoft. Any other portugues
FREE Update (Score:3, Informative)
Always worth a try!
Personal Users? (Score:2, Interesting)
How much is Congress costing America? (Score:2)
By the way, a LOT of VCRs and other embedded-systems clocks will never again pick up DST correctly. I've told people to turn DST off on clocks and older PCs and just change the clocks manually.
Extended Support? (Score:2)
Now, if you want a patch for a product that is OUT of support ( like NT4, or exchange 5.5 ), then a resonable fee should apply.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:things that make you go hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:things that make you go hmmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Talk about tinfoil hats, how paranoid do you have to be to tie a daylight savings change to the Iraq war?
The daylight savings time change is one tiny paragraph of a huge energy policy bill [loc.gov], and by the way provides for a study in 9 months to see if it actually helped, and a potential of reverting back to the 2005 schedule if it didn't help. You may not agree with the policies put forth in the bill, but it certainly wasn't prompted by a desire to avoid appropriating money --- my senators and representative (all republicans) voted against it for anti-pork reasons.
Prognosis (Score:2)
Lost sales due to implementation problems -$1.2 Billion
Lost wages due to bumble-fucked transition -$2.3 Billion
Injuries, lawsuits etc: -$2.7 billion
Bribes er
Energy Savings +$2.1 Billion
Net savings: -$6.101 Billion. For Congress, that's good. =/
[Note: all numbers conjured out of "thin air" which is to say made up -just like the government's numbers]
Re: (Score:2)
Is it going to cost another $4000 per product to back the change out?
Re:things that make you go hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the summary saying "it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for." - well, no, that isn't true. Customers paid for a product and for support for it; the support for Windows 2000 is over, as per the original agreements. They got what they paid for. This is the same issue with any proprietary, closed-source software - the client is left to depend on a single vendor for patches once the official support is over, and can effectively be taken hostage (I wouldn't trust patches from anyone who doesn't have access to all the source code). Microsoft isn't doing anything 'special' here beyond typical closed-source tactics. But those are enough to show the importance of using FOSS.
Cows, Drapes and Diaries. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Dairy cows will require milking at the "wrong time" and will suffer from overfull udders.
2. Drapes will fade quicker due to the "extra" UV light.
BTW: This DST "calamity" is not restricted to MS software, I mean how the hell does someone with a traditional diary get around the problem, I have never seen a
Support for Windows 2000 is over (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, by the US doing this it created more time zones. How? Mexico is choosing not to go along with the DST updates, therefore anywhere in Mexico using PST effectively isn't anymore.
Re:things that make you go hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trying to defend MS, but there's no need to make dodgy comparisons... One can surmise that open-source users will likely have an easier time making this change, seeing as they don't have to rely on a corporation to update their binaries.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And, please note that these products aren't even officially being supported anymore
Allow me to dance upon the grave of this particular party line here and now -- bullshit [theregister.co.uk], MS is still actively selling this operating system if you happen to be the right customer.
My gripe isn't that they want to charge for an update to a (now) 2-gen-old version of a product. My gripe is what they want to charge, even the new bargain-basement price. I could see a "nominal charge" up to the original sticker price, but I just can't swallow that a relatively simple change to the OS incurs a 40x higher cost t
Re:Bastages. (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
If you bought an extended support contract, at the time of expiration, you get this for free.
If you thought "I won't have any W2K in 6 months, so why bother" and 24 months later, the DST issue caught you - well, pay up.
Or what value did those who paid for extended support get?
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. The Windows 2000 codebase is, what, 7-9 years old now? These slashdotters who are railing against Microsoft must not have ever tried doing a dev / qa project for production software (including hot hotfixing of critical servers) on code that is -- in IT terms -- ancient. That's a big cost to recapture.
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Listen, bro: 'free' and 'MicroSoft' are mutually exclusive concepts.
Any appearance of 'free' is a bill on a delay line.
In fairness, for some, there may be a business case for the transaction, but let us curb our enthusiasm, bitte.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
(MS only releases security-related fixes)
Re:Bastages. (Score:5, Informative)
Open up regedit and go to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contr
Change DaylightStart to the following
00 00 03 00 02 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
(Simply we're changing 04 to 03 and 01 to 02)
Change StandardStart to the following
00 00 0b 00 01 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
(Simply we're changing 0a to 0b and 05 to 01)
Why those changes?
DaylightStart rules:
04 becomes 03 because we're going from "April" (04) to "March" (03). 01 becomes 02 because we're going from the 1st Sunday (in April) to the 2nd Sunday (in March).
StandardStart rules:
0a becomes 0b because we're going from "October" (0a) to "November" (0b). 05 becomes 01 because we're going from the Last Sunday (in October) to the 1st Sunday (in November).
Consider that one on the house. It works for Windows 2000 at least.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the real, real question is: why are you so desperate to drag political bullshit into every story? Love him or hate him, GWB has absolutely nothing to do with how much Microsoft charges for a patch.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously (Score:2)
Yes, you're missing Four Million Dollars for every thousand businesses who figure they ought to get these for 'good measure'.
Microsoft isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are now obligated to fix a substantial set of problems if the patch doesn't work right. These time of day things are notoriously touchy with unexpected consequences.
The problem is due to congressional dementia, not to any action of Microsoft's, so MS really is not obligated to fix it for free.
Nonetheless, I agree this is something that Microsoft could have done for free. The revenue is probably not all that great, and MS could use some
Re: (Score:2)
Yet I see clients demanding that someone offer paid support for anything - even if we all know the support is worthless.
Without support, the buck stops there. With support, there is another link higher up in the chain of blame.
A company's software support may leave you high and dry, but then you can blame them when the boss asks why something doesn't work. Without it, it's just you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a load of BS. Time zone rules are not hard-coded in Windows; the DST rules are just in the registry. The registry is an editable configuration file, just like the zoneinfo configuration files on a Linux system. On Windows, you can edit the time zone rules yourself, and microsoft even provides instructions (and a GUI tool) for doing so if you don't want to deploy a patch.
MS did not release supported exectuable patches for its out-of-support products, because they don't want to do the QA and support
Re: (Score:2)