Text 16864, 165 rader
Skriven 2007-03-10 10:10:52 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 16863 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Microsoft Customers Irate over Daylight-Saving Time Woes
====================================================================
From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>

The customers should be irate with the critters in Congress for changing the
DST as there was no absolutely no need to do it


"mike" <mike@barkto.com> wrote in message
news:ush5v2thgl0arjjfabinrg0ufq5mts5bij@4ax.com...
>
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2102366,00.asp
>
> ===
> The extension of daylight-saving time by a month in the United States is
> causing enormous grief for some IT administrators running Microsoft
> software, as many of the software programs running on their users'
> systems need to be individually patched to reflect the change.
>
> This year, DST (daylight-saving time) starts on Sunday, March 11-three
> weeks earlier than usual-and ends a week later than usual on Nov. 4.
>
> Microsoft has been warning customers that unless certain updates are
> applied to their computers, the time zone settings for their system
> clock may be incorrect during this four-week period.
>
> "In particular, you must make sure that both your Windows operating
> system and your calendar programs are updated," the company said on its
> support site.
>
> In an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the DST change and the
> problems being experienced by its customers, at 5 a.m. PT on March 8
> Microsoft opened its DST Support Central Site, a series of sites in
> Redmond, North Carolina, Las Colinas and in India, where 24-hour support
> is provided for customers who run into escalations.
>
> "I have been here [in Redmond] all day long, and I have seen very few
> escalations come through from our field. But it is early, so we may see
> more tomorrow and the next day. But today we have not been flooded with
> requests for information and guidance or help," M3 Sweatt, the chief of
> staff for the Windows Core Operating System Development Group, told
> eWEEK.
>
> But, that being said, Microsoft was already working closely with its
> enterprise customers to ensure they had what they needed.
>
> "Some of them are happy, some of them are not. But we are working with
> them as best we can to make sure we are addressing their issues," he
> said.
>
> As such, the Redmond software maker has also posted a list of the most
> commonly asked questions it is receiving about DST, which customers can
> easily search to find the answers to their questions, he said.
>
> While Windows Vista, Exchange 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
> do not require any updates, a host of other products do, including
> Exchange Server, Outlook, SQL Server Notification Services, Office Live
> Meeting, Microsoft Entourage, Dynamics CRM, Windows SharePoint Services,
> Windows Mobile and Windows CE.
>
>
> But some customers are experiencing problems with implementing the
> patches and getting them to work, and are expressing their frustration
> and anger in comments on online chat sites.
>
> Microsoft's online DST chat room, which the company is currently
> staffing with technical experts 15 hours a day from 6 a.m. PST to 9 p.m.
> PST to facilitate the discussion and resolution of issues around DST, is
> inundated with customers experiencing a myriad of issues with the
> patches.
>
> "This is INSANE. I buy a standard product for 2500 bucks and then I get
> a note telling me to update it for a problem known for a couple years.
> And the patch screws up my system. How long will my appointments be
> shifted? For three weeks now and two weeks at the end of "old" dst?," a
> post from customer on the Microsoft DST chat said.
>
> Is the daylight-saving time change bigger than Y2K? Click here to read
> more.
>
> Another customer experienced similar frustration. "When I try to bring
> up a calendar date or appointment, the form required to view it is not
> available. What do I do? Are you getting this error: The form you
> selected could not be displayed. The form required to view this message
> cannot be displayed. Contact your administrator?"
>
> Microsoft's Sweatt acknowledged that DST updating had been a challenge
> for customers with a myriad of solutions in their IT shop, whether those
> be from Microsoft, Sun, IBM or Oracle, and who were now looking to their
> suppliers for solutions.
>
> "One of the things we have been working on closely is to provide them
> with the solutions they need. If there is an escalation or a customer
> does not have an answer, they can get through to us, and we are making
> sure they understand the path to get their answer," he said.
>
> But, that being said, Sweatt did admit that there were some areas where
> Microsoft had been late to provide the solutions that customers needed,
> specifically some customer updates such as for CRM 3.0.
>
> "In those difficult situations we have tried to make sure that we have a
> dialogue with customers so they understand what the options are. But we
> haven't run into an issue that I'm aware of where we had
> incompatibilities with products," he said.
>
> "The challenges we have had have largely been with people's
> understanding of what they should do when. Many customers also found out
> later that they had other products installed that they may not have been
> aware of, and this then meant that they had not followed Microsoft's
> guidance correctly, or were not aware that we had refined our guidance,"
> Sweatt said.
>
> In addition, some customers are having problems accessing the chat room,
> receiving an error message that states: "There was a problem loading the
> chat application. Please try again later or use the Contact Us link at
> the bottom of the page."
>
>
> Making matters worse is the fact that some customers say that
> Microsoft's phone support is also overwhelmed with callers trying to
> resolve their DST patch issues, with many users put on hold for hours
> before actually talking to someone, if they get through at all.
>
> But Sweatt disputed this, saying that its logs show that most support
> calls are initially answered in less than 30 minutes, with more time
> needed to resolve very technical and complex questions.
>
> Those customers with very complex issues were also not being kept
> waiting on the phone, but were called back when the answer was
> available, he said.
>
> For those customers still running products like Windows 2000, Exchange
> 2000 or the earlier Exchange 5.5, are no longer in Microsoft mainstream
> support and are thus not covered under standard support agreements, the
> situation is even more dire, as it will cost them $4,000 for all the DST
> updates.
>
> While Microsoft's online DST support site notes that DST updates for
> products in mainstream support are provided at no charge, "those
> products in extended support require an Extended Hotfix Support
> Agreement ($4,000 charge for all DST updates). Products out of support
> are not available without a Custom Support Agreement."
>
> Sweatt said that Microsoft was advising customers to first install the
> operating system patch (931836) on their servers, then on their clients,
> then rebase their calendar appointments using TZMove (931667) / TZMove
> update 933146 / Exchange tool 930879) and then to install the Exchange
> DST patch for CDO (926666).
>
> "For those customers who have just recently realized that DST changes
> this weekend, we are trying to provide them with multiple access
> points-from online chats to webcasts and phone support-to help answer
> their questions as quickly as possible," he said.
> ===
>
>
> I still cannot understand why MS Outlook needs to be patched?  Or other
> MS applications.  Shouldn't MS Outlook (and other applications) be able
> to obtain daylight savings info from the underlying OS?  It's not like
> MS Outlook was written by some obscure software vendor that knows
> nothing about the intermingling of apps and system software....
>
>
> /m

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