Monday, April 25, 2011

Mac RDP and Time Zone Redirection

This issue is becoming more and more popular as an increasing number of users have been accessing terminal servers from the Mac RDP client.

The Mac RDP client does not forward the client time zone correctly. When Mac RDP clients connect to Windows 2008 or Windows 7 computers remotely, the system time appears to be correct, but it's really set to "(GMT -07:00) Unknown time zone" [May be different for those outside of PST]. This issue is most apparent when launching Outlook and looking at calendar appointment times.

Server 2008 and Windows 7 include a utility called tzutil that you can use to update the time zone. Example: TZUTIL /s "Pacific Standard Time"

Or this can be resolved by turning off the TS Time Zone Redirection GPO, but then all users get same time zone:

GPO for it:
Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Terminal Server\Device and Resource Redirection\Allow time zone redirection

(Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725887(WS.10).aspx)

Edit: Aforementioned GPO is location on a Server 2003 DC, for Server 2008 DC look in: Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Device and Resource Redirection\Allow time zone redirection

2 comments:

Samual said...

Thanks for sharing such a great post. If you’re not used to dealing in multiple time zones, then it may not even occur to you to note the time zone when scheduling and confirming appointments.

Master time zones

Rodney said...

Is this a MAC RDP client issue, or a TS/RDS issue? I'm looking for reference material that states the known issue on the Microsoft Site.