Advisory: Information on daylight saving time changes for Mauritius and Egypt in 2008

Coming soon to our Hot Topics for Daylight Saving Time changes page, information on changes accommodating Mauritius and Egypt.

Guidance for Mauritius on Upcoming Daylight Saving Time Implementation for 2008-2009

As noted at http://www.afrol.com/articles/29955 on July 23, 2008 and in L’Express newspaper, the government of Mauritius has decided to adopt Summer Time (as it’s known in Europe, aka daylight saving time) in the island nation of over 1 million.   According to published government announcements, the country will begin recognizing Summer Time in October of this year. Official reports note that DST will begin on October 26, 2008 and end on March 27, 2009.

The post on our Technet blog summarizes the actions recommended for customers in Mauritius to address the implementation of daylight saving time and mitigate its impacts. These are the impacts primarily anticipated at the time this document was written, and the effects that customers may face are not restricted to them.

Windows Hotfix Available for Egypt 2008 Daylight Savings Time Change

The government of Egypt announced that due to the observance of Ramadan,  it has changed the end of Daylight Savings Time to August 28, 2008 at midnight.  

Microsoft has created upon request, out of band release packages for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for the Egypt  DST update, Knowledge Base Article 953732, “A hotfix is available to update the ” (GMT+02:00) Cairo” time zone for 2008 in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.” 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). 

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Mauritius, Egypt; 4,370,000 (up from 3.6M a month ago); 2,360,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 100K since last month)

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