VCALENDAR Timezone and DST problem in Outlook 2007

Question

I have a problem with ical while opening in outlook 2007, it shows 1 hour ahead in australian time zone and one hour behind in other locations. It wil be a great help, if some body could figure it out, Following is the .ico file content.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 11.0 MIMEDIR//EN VERSION:2.0 METHOD:REQUEST BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:16010101T000000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=4 TZOFFSETFROM:+1100 TZOFFSETTO:+1000 TZNAME:Standard Time END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:16010101T000000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=10 TZOFFSETFROM:+1000 TZOFFSETTO:+1100 TZNAME:Daylight Saving Time END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT ATTENDEE;CN="ullas ";ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;RSVP=TRUE:MAILTO:[email protected] ORGANIZER:MAILTO:[email protected] DTSTART;TZID="Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney":20091019T180000 DTEND;TZID="Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney":20091019T183000 LOCATION:Melb-L19 Room 8 TRANSP:OPAQUE SEQUENCE:1 UID:rtwj2xbjvihflu5540kyy055_3379_633915722919214986 DTSTAMP:20091019T184901Z SUMMARY:CMS[Ref#:10300][UPDATED: Meeting reservation] DESCRIPTION: Melb-L19 Room 8\n\nMeeting Starting Time: 2009/10/19 18:00\nMeeting Ending Time: 2009/10/19 18:30\n\n AUST TIME : 18-18.30\n\n\n PRIORITY:5 X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1 CLASS:PUBLIC BEGIN:VALARM TRIGGER:-PT15M ACTION:DISPLAY DESCRIPTION:Reminder END:VALARM END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR

Answer 1

Not sure what you can control, or where the ical data is coming from, but what if you change the TZID to 'Australia/Melbourne' or 'Australia/Sydney'?

DTSTART;TZID="Australia/Sydney":20091019T180000 
DTEND;TZID="Australia/Sydney":20091019T183000

This may not be the latest, but this is the VTIMEZONE record I have.

BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Australia/Sydney
X-LIC-LOCATION:Australia/Sydney
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+1000
TZOFFSETTO:+1100
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:19701025T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+1000
TZOFFSETTO:+1000
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:19700329T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE

Answer 2

I think that this type of problem when you see one or two hours more or less from what you expect is related with daylight saving times.

I recommend you to check which is the correct current time here:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=152

(note that right now you have Daylight saving time: +1 hour)

And then check if the configuration of the computer that generated the calendar is correct, this means if is taking in account the Daylight saving time.