The country will once again modify its time zones

Sep 25, 2014 09:20 GMT  ·  By

Computer users in Russia or those travelling to the country in the coming weeks and months will need to update their systems once again, as they’re switching to new time zones.

Russia made the very first modifications to time zones in 2010, when it decided to drop from 11 to 9 time zones, but the country is now making even new tweaks, thus making Windows updates mandatory for those who want to have the correct time on their PCs.

As Rod Trent of WindowsItPro writes today, the change will take place on October 26, so users who do not update their systems will be displayed an incorrect date.

Microsoft has already rolled out a patch to cope with this change, so just make sure that you deploy it in case you’re travelling to Russia anytime soon.

The update was rolled out this month

The software giant released KB2998527 to prepare computers for the new time zone change in Russia, so a simple check for new patches in Windows Update should address any incorrect time issues that might occur next month.

“Russia has announced that it will change its existing time zones on October 26, 2014. Microsoft released an update for Windows on September 23, 2014 to address this change. Users should install the update before October 26, 2014 to avoid having incorrect time zone data after this date,” the company said in a detailed description of the patch.

The new patch is offered for Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1 in both 32- and 64-bit versions, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit.

Several changes to take place on Windows PCs

In the description of the patch, Microsoft says that several changes will be performed on each computer, including the update of seven existing time zones.

At the same time, Microsoft will also implement a new time zone for Belarus, so users living in the country will have to manually switch to this new setting on October 26.

“Belarus is currently sharing time zone settings with Kaliningrad. Therefore, Windows creates a dedicated time zone for Belarus as part of this update. Users in Belarus who are located in the current ‘Kaliningrad Standard Time’ time zone must manually switch to the new ‘Belarus Standard Time’ time zone. Otherwise, these users will automatically be updated to the new ‘Russia Time Zone 1’ on October 26, 2014,” the company explained.

As usual, the new patch is delivered via Windows Update, so just check for updates to make sure that you get this one too.