Daylight Saving Time 2007: Update Windows Servers and Workstations

• Download source code - 105.73 KB

Introduction

New Daylight Saving Time rules go into effect on March 11^th, 2007 at 2 AM. Microsoft has provided some sample instructions for updating systems, but there are some serious drawbacks:

• There is no support for Windows 2000 servers or workstations. Actually there is but you have to pay for "Extended Support" to get it.
• The patch for Windows Server 2003 is "optional" so you have to select Custom Windows Updates - not Critical Updates which are the default. THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE; MICROSOFT RECENTLY CHANGED THE PATCH TO CRITICAL.
• The solution Microsoft proposes for updating multiple computers involves a Computer node Group Policy Object, which is fine but it does require a reboot.

Here is the Microsoft KB on the subject.

Solution

What I did was put together a console application that queries the AD structure by operating system, then uses SysInternal's PsExec tool to execute a registry update on multiple remote machines.

ENVIRONMENT: Visual Studio 2005, .NET 2.0, C# (you will need to add the reference for System.DirectoryServices)

Here is the code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using System.DirectoryServices;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace MyNamespace
{
  class Program
  {
  static void Main(string[] args)
  {
    SearchResultCollection results = null;

    StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter("\\\\sharename\\DST$\\results.log", true);
    StreamWriter swerr = new StreamWriter("\\\\sharename\\DST$\\errors.log", true);

    try
    {
    // Bind to a container.
    string path = "<a href="ldap://DC=ABC,DC=DEF,DC=org/">ldap://DC=ABC,DC=DEF,DC=org/</a>";

    DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(path);

    // Create a DirectorySearcher object.
    DirectorySearcher mySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry);
    mySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name");
    mySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("operatingsystem");
    // Set a filter for W2K servers. Can also be used for 2003
    // mySearcher.Filter = 
    // "(&(objectCategory=computer)(operatingSystem=Windows Server 2003))";
    // Testing a single machine would look like this
    // mySearcher.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=computer)
    // (operatingSystem=Windows 2000 Server)(name=SERVERNAME))";

    mySearcher.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=computer)
                    (operatingSystem=Windows 2000 Server))";

    results = mySearcher.FindAll();

    foreach (SearchResult searchResult in results)
      {
        ResultPropertyValueCollection valcol = searchResult.Properties["name"];
        {
        // Write the value contained in index position 0 in the name attribute.

        string pc = valcol[0].ToString();

        // User needs to be a Domain Admin or a local admin on the remote computer
        string psargs = "\\\\" + pc + " -u DOMAIN\\username -p password 
                    <a>\\\\sharename\\DST$\\DSTUpdate.bat";

</a>        Process proc = new Process();
        proc.StartInfo.FileName = "C:\\sharename\\DST\\psexec.exe";
        proc.StartInfo.Arguments = psargs;
        proc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        proc.Start();
        proc.WaitForExit();

        string output = proc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();

        // This is done this way because SysInternal's PsExec 
        // does not handle StandardOutput and StandardError
        // when running on a remote machine 
        sw.WriteLine("Computer: " + pc + 
                 " Result(blank = no update): " + output + "\r\n");
        sw.Flush();

        proc.Close();

        }
      }
    }

    catch (Exception ex)
    {
      swerr.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message);
    }

    finally
    {
      // To prevent memory leaks, always call 
      // SearchResultCollection.Dispose() manually.
      if (null != results)
      {
      results.Dispose();
      results = null;
      }

    sw.Close();
    swerr.Close();
    }

  }//end main
  }//end class
}// end namespace

The file DTSUpdate.bat has just three lines:

@echo off
regedit /s \\sharename\DST$\DSTRegistry.reg
cscript \\sharename\DST$\DSTInfo.vbs

Both of these files (DSTRegistry.reg and DSTInfo.vbs) come directly from Microsoft's Web site.

Conclusion

It seems like the DST issue is sneaking up on a lot of companies. It's probably not going to be that big of a deal, but it is best to be prepared. I thought there would already be something similar posted, but I found nothing... so I am putting it out for general use. If someone finds a way to pipe the PsExec output to a file, I would really like to know how that is done. Thanks.