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

WB6BNQ wb6bnq at cox.net
Sat Nov 3 08:26:27 UTC 2012


Sarah,

I am having a hard time understanding your problem.  Or at least what you see as
a problem.  I am not sure what you are really complaining about here ?  Is it the
daylight change ?  Or is it a dual boot problem which would suggest you do not
have some settings in their rightful place ?

The computer is merely displaying a form of time representation on the screen
(human device).  Internally, it seems to me, the computer's operating system is
merely keeping a count of the passing seconds since reading the actual hardware,
hardwired clock chip upon boot-up.  After the initial boot it no longer reads the
hardware clock chip to my understanding.  If that is the case, it would suggest
that a flag is recorded as to the daylight savings time change either in firmware
or perhaps on the mass storage device that has the operating system.

It is possible that the hardwired clock chip may keep track of the daylight
savings function.  If that is the case, perhaps the way to deal with it is to
write a a small program that will make sure that hardwired chip stays in the NON
daylight mode as part of a boot-up routine.

As for the microsoft reference, it suggests not using a particular registry entry
and if it is there to delete it.  On my computer it is not present in the
registry.  While that only fixes some kind of system unresponsiveness issue, it
does not seem to keep the daylight function from changing.

With all the clock Synching available via the internet, it seems to me your clock
should not be an issue in of itself.  However, I am retired, as such, do not have
a watch and pay little attention to the wall clock.

Bill....WB6BNQ


Sarah White wrote:

> 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
>
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