[time-nuts] Accurate timestamping on computers (previously: For my whole life timezones have been weird)

[Sarah White]

On 11/3/2012 5:32 AM, Sarah White wrote:
> So, at or around 1981 (the year I was born) there was a cool concept.
> IBM was selling "personal computers" (IBM-PC compatible later became a
> thing) and by the time I was old enough to operate a modem, I had one
> myself. Life was good.
> 
> Wonder if there is any sensible way to petition microsoft to fix this
> stupid mistake dating back to the DOS era. Windows 8 / metro is out now,
> and I can't bloody stand the changes. Would be nice if windows 7 had an
> update to fix this issue:
> 
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687252
> 
> Article ID: 2687252 - Last Review: March 13, 2012 - Revision: 4.0
> 
> APPLIES TO
> Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
> Microsoft Windows XP Professional
> Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3
> Windows Vista Business
> Windows Vista Enterprise
> Windows Vista Home Premium
> Windows Vista Ultimate
> Windows Vista Service Pack 1
> Windows Vista Service Pack 2
> Windows 7 Enterprise
> Windows 7 Home Basic
> Windows 7 Home Premium
> Windows 7 Professional
> Windows 7 Ultimate
> Windows 7 Service Pack 1
> Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
> Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
> Windows Server 2008 Standard
> Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
> Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
> Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
> Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
> Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
> Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
> 
> ... Pretty sure that's 100% of all recent versions of windows. The whole
> thing started because windows 3.1 / 95 / 98 / 2000 / ME / etc. etc. etc.
> were all targeted with being backward compatible with the previous OS
> leading all the way back to DOS (first versions of DOS were coming out
> in 1981 the year I was born)
> 
> For where I live, this weekend is the "change your clocks" for the
> fall... or don't, or do something else... petition microsoft maybe?
> 
> I'd love for windows 7 to have a fix for this since I'm not upgrading to
> the horrible looking windows 8 --- windows 7 will be in extended support
> until 2020 (( reference: http://goo.gl/unxvj )) so I figure let's try to
> get them to fix it in the next few years. I'm serious about this.
> 
> Let's fix this timezone problem!!!
> 
> Pretty much every other operating system vendor out there (various POSIX
> platforms including more than one version of BSD, linux and even mac OSX
> since under the hood it is a POSIX based operating system) it is an
> option to leave the hardeware real-time-clock (bios clock) on UTC.
> 
> Ok that's all I'm typing on this.
> 
> Angry at several of my clocks today,
> Sarah White
> 

There are a number of reasons it can be problematic for an OS to change
the hardware clock twice a year.

Example being that sometimes is if you "dual-boot" more than one version
of windows, both of them will try to adjust the clock.

Historically, more than one machine I've run has had a glitch where the
clock was set forward more than just a single hour adjustment due to
dual-boot or just crash during reboots when summer time was being
set/unset. Plenty can go wrong. It's just not anything I want to worry
about / shouldn't be necessary (mac, linux, bsd, etc. don't have this
flaw because they typically have the hardware clock set to UTC, and use
software settings to display the local time by calculating offset)

...Someone contacted me offlist and pointed out that there is no reason
I can't tell windows that I'm in a timezone that uses UTC (without
summer time / daylight savings time adjustment)

The workaround varies by windows version, but for me it looks basically
like this:

http://inkushi.freeshell.org/Saturday_November_03_2012_555_UTC_Protest.png
http://inkushi.freeshell.org/Saturday_November_03_2012_637_UTC_Workaround.png

Basically, a side effect is that windows is now reporting UTC as being
local time even though that is NOT my desired local clock for display
and other purposes. This was the only workaround I knew for certain
would keep my hardware clock set to UTC.

My emails are now being timestamped with UTC as a result. Shouldn't
confuse me too badly, but this is the most optimal way I could come up
with. I don't want to have to think about the behavior / performance of
my NTP time synchronization twice a year. This is the main reason (for
me) it is an issue.

So maybe I really am a little bit nuts (about time too)
Sarah White

P.S. For windows 7, default tray / notification icon settings: All of
the relevant settings are available by simply clicking the clock in the
corner. Can even add "additional clocks" to display alternate timezones
and name them whatever you like. Unfortunately, most software now
reports the "local" clock wrong, and the only way I seem to be able to
view local time is by using the windows clock / calendar applet in the
corner of the taskbar (tray area) Whatever. For my purposes it was more
important to have the hardware clock not be tampered with twice a year
by the OS