Time Zone Updates for Fiji, Cyprus, Sudan, Tonga, Namibia and Turks & Caicos
Microsoft is aware of the following time zone changes which will take effect over the next few months:
- The Republic of the Fiji Islands ends DST on January 14, 2018 instead of January 21, 2018.
- Northern Cyprus reinstitutes winter time starting October 29, 2017.
- The Republic of the Sudan switches from UTC+03:00 to UTC+02:00 on November 11, 2017. A new Windows time zone will be created to reflect this change.
- The Kingdom of Tonga cancels DST which was previously scheduled to start on November 5, 2017.
- The Republic of Namibia will permanently switch from UTC+01:00 to UTC+02:00 on September 3, 2017 at 02:00 hours. DST was previously scheduled to end on April 1, 2018 at 02:00 hours.
- The Turks & Caicos Islands will switch from UTC-04:00 all year to UTC-05:00 with US DST on March 11, 2018 at 03:00 hours.
Our official policy statement can be found on the site at microsoft.com/time.
Though we plan to release a data update, there is insufficient lead before some of these time changes goes into effect. Therefore, we offer the following guidance temporary workaround until such an update can be properly created, tested, distributed, and installed.
Interim Guidance for Northern Cyprus
Until an update is made available, we recommend our customers to continue using time zone “(UTC+02:00) Athens, Bucharest” from October 29, 2017. Selecting this time zone will correctly reflect the time in Northern Cyprus.
Interim Guidance for Sudan
Until an update is made available, we recommend our customers to continue using time zone “(UTC+02:00) Harare, Pretoria” from November 1, 2017. Selecting this time zone will correctly reflect the time in Sudan. Once an update is made available, we recommend customers to switch to the new time zone that will be introduced for the Republic of Sudan.
Interim Guidance for Tonga
Until an update is made available, we recommend our customers who have selected “(UTC +13:00) Nuku'alofa” to disable the "Adjust for daylight savings time automatically" option in the Date & Time Settings page. Doing so will correctly reflect the time in Tonga.