Microsoft Announces a Bunch of Release Dates

Microsoft made another round of announcements regarding the release of a whole bunch of their upcoming products:

• For starters - and not so surprisingly - Windows Server 2008 looks like it is going to slip. They haven't renamed is Windows Server 2009 yet, but it won't RTM until first quarter '08 at some point, which means a probable actual release in May or later.
• And then there is Vista SP1, the much anticipated update that is supposed to solve all the problems in the RTM release. It is expected to be in beta in the next couple weeks and then released to the public around Q1 2008.
• Finally, there is XP SP 3, which is also expected to be released in the first half of 2008. This won't extend the mainstream support past April '09, but with extended support available through 2014, and the stability of SP2 and expected stability and improvements of SP3, folks shying away from Vista will have quite a bit of time to let the bugs filter out application compatibility work itself out.

Oh, and not announced today, but actually released into WSUS and other update channels recently was yet another DST patch. Why they couldn't include the necessary updates in the patch that they released at the beginning of the year is beyond me. It isn't like DST moved again. Yet here we are, rolling out another patch to solve the problem. Yuck. At least this one shouldn't be quite as disruptive.

Happy Patching!

We thought Vista was safe

This also affects 2003 and XP. Who knows how many applications use the environment variable. I can't wait to see what patches come out next week.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932590

Microsoft Windows-based applications that use the TZ environment variable may not work as expected because of changes to daylight saving time (DST). Starting in the spring of 2007, the DST start date and the DST end date for the United States will transition to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. DST in the United States will start three weeks earlier (2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later (2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November) than in previous years.
In Windows Vista, in Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and in Microsoft Windows XP, when you use the TZ environment variable, the C Run-Time (CRT) localtime function and the CRT _localtime64 function will not correctly recognize DST. These functions will recognize DST as starting on the first Sunday of April and as ending on the last Sunday of October for all dates.
Install this update to address an issue where the TZ environment variable may not work as expected due to Daylight Savings Time changes in the United States. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
XP
XP64
2003
2003 64
Vista
Vista 64