Outlook 2003 Terminal Server Time Zone issue

[robert_strom]

Hello,

I've got a Windows 2003 Terminal Server farm (6 Terminal Servers behind a hardware load balancer) which has Office 2003 Standard installed.

The TS users are in several time zones. The time zones are working properly (W2k3 is picking up the proper time zones from the users desktops).

The Desktops are set to automatically set Daylight Savings time as necessary.

Outlook 2003 is properly picking up the time zone settings but not the Daylight Savings time settings

Upon further investigation W2k3 TS is picking up the time zones but it is also not picking up the Daylight Savings time settings.

In testing I found that if you changed the OL2k3 time zone settings that you actually changed the system settings - the two are integrally linked. This would be fine if it all worked.

I think an underlying issue is that the W2k3 TS servers are in a time zone which does not use Daylight Savings time.

Has anyone had any experience with this issue? Any thoughts or feedback?

TIA,

Robert

[robert_strom]

Problem Solved !!!

Here's the solution

Current Situation

- The Terminal Servers were installed in Arizona, a state which does not observe Daylight Savings Time

- Microsoft Office was installed on the Terminal Servers in the Arizona Time Zone

- The resulting settings of an installation of Outlook 2003 in a non-Daylight Savings Time environment are that the Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes setting is disabled for all users in the Terminal Server environment (there is a registry key entry made which tells the computer that Daylight Savings time is not to be used on this computer)

- The resulting effect of this is that all users on the Terminal Server Farm using Outlook 2003 do not have the ability to configure their Outlook 2003 to observe Daylight Savings Time (no permissions to delete the registry key setting)

Solution

- Delete the offending registry key value HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet on all Terminal Servers in the Terminal Server Farm

- The setting takes place immediately

Caveats

- Any appointments created and sent out by a Terminal Server Office user who resides in a Daylight Savings time zone will be shifted by one hour in their calendar. If these appointments were sent to a non-Daylight Savings time zone user the user in the non-Daylight Savings time zone will still have the correct time, but the user who created the appointment in the Daylight Savings time zone will not display the correct appointment time.

- Any appointments created by a non-Daylight Savings time zone Terminal Server Office user and sent to a non-Daylight Savings time zone Terminal Server Office user will be fine.

- Any appointments created by a non-Daylight Savings time zone Terminal Server Office user and sent to a Daylight Savings time zone Terminal Server Office user will be fine as long as these appointments were not adjusted by the Daylight Savings time zone user.

HTH,

Robert