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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.5.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.5.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A new task, Remote Start, has been added. You can use this task as a part of an Action assigned to a switcher Input Relay, for instance, to duplicate the functionality of the original game port remote starts. As availability of good-quality game ports, particularly USB types, seems to be diminishing, the Remote Start task may be a good alternative if you have a switcher with available, unused Input Relays.
- Importing of music data has be revised to include more information. Depending on the music scheduling system you are exporting your library from, XStudio now imports song run time (length), category, intro, ending, album, and release year. Note that some library exports do not include all of this new information and when not present in the source data, XStudio will leave the affected field blank. The additional information is visible as a default in the Music Maintenance area of the XStudio Automation Setup dialog. The Music Search Dialog as a default displays a subset of the additional fields and can be user-modified to display or hide fields of your choosing. If you update an older version of XStudio, the additional data is imported the first time an auto-update of the music data occurs or if you manually re-import the data in the Music Maintenance dialog.
- A new music export template for MusicMaster has been introduced. This template adds the fields Album and Year (typically Peak Year or Release Year) to the exported data. A sample template is included in the XStudio installation.
- Cart macro characters are now converted when dragging and dropping a log item directly onto a playback deck or into the Audio Clipboard, and when macro characters are used in a hot button. In all cases the macro characters are evaluated at the start of play.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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We are pleased to announce release of dcsTools Audio Importer!
[...More...]We are pleased to announce release of dcsTools Audio Importer!
dcsTools Audio Importer offers a number of features that make audio handling more efficient.
- Unattended, automatic conversion and import of audio files with no user interaction required.
- Granular control of how a conversion is handled based on user-defined criteria.
- Output type, expiration date and output location are controlled by the user - there's no one-size-fits-all restriction.
- Support for multiple source file types, including .wav, .mpg, .mp2, .mp3, .daf, .dff, and .raw
- Support for multiple output file types, including .wav, .mpg, .mp2, .mp3, .daf, .dff, and .raw
- Support for multiple import paths. You can have dcsTools Audio Importer monitor several folder locations for the arrival of files that are to be converted.
- Support for multiple output paths. You can have dcsTools Audio Importer place converted files in a specific destination folder based on conditions you define.
dcsTools Audio Importer Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.3.2!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.3.2!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A new task, Banner Message, has been added along with a new floating dialog (the XStudio Message Center). This task can be used to advise operators of changes in system configuration (for a ballgame, for instance) or anything else that might be needed to get the attention of the operator.
- A new task, System Backup, has been added. The backup operation occurs in the background and does not affect XStudio operations. When the task is executed, the XStudio system database tables are backed up to a target location defined in the task. Optionally, XStudio preference and settings files, including hot button configuration files, can be backed up. The task also has a option to zip the backed-up files to save disk storage space.
- Preference properties for controlling the font type and size used in the main display's inventory list have been added. These settings can be changed on the User Interface tab in Preferences.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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A maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- The user interface has been updated to improve general appearance.
- When a user attempted to register the application by copying and pasting the registration key into the registration dialog, the registration key would be invalid because the user inadvertently copied leading spaces instead of just the registration key text. Now, any extraneous spaces are removed when the user pastes the registration key into the dialog. Additional feedback is provided when manually entering a registration key that is not the correct length, which can occur if a character is missed in typing or if copying only a portion of the registration key and pasting it.
- Log display times can now be shown as AM/PM times if desired. As a default, ezSuite and ezEdit continue to display log times in military format. To enable AM/PM time display, use the main menu item View | Show Log Time as AM/PM. When enabled, printed logs also reflect AM/PM times.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.3.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.3.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A new task type, Remap Input Relays, has been added. This task allows you to replace the input relay mapping for a selected audio switcher device with a completely different set of Actions assigned to available input relays. This task can also be used to restore the original "default" relay mapping for a device.
- Handling of Start Play tasks that use the Cart Rotation List has been updated to fully support rotation of multiple cart numbers, including checking the inventory (if available) for missing and, if applicable, out-of-date carts.
- A new Relay Queue Maintenance dialog has been added. The dialog displays all active Start Play tasks that use a Cart Rotation List. Cart rotations can be modified by adding, editing and deleting cart numbers in the rotation. The Next-to-Play property can also be modified. Changes made are active until XStudio is restarted. Users can also change the Current Voice setting manually in this dialog.
- Time-Approximate Directive handling in Satellite Mode has been implemented to support automated sports broadcasts and similar events where breaks are sequence-sensitive rather than time sensitive. The log now distinguishes between and displays the next fixed time directive (NxtU =>) and time-approximate directive (NxtA =>). Users can manually mark the next time-approximate directive to be used to handle situations where XStudio needs to be synchronized with the next network break event.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.2.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.2.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A hourly content back-timer has been added, integrated with the clock display. The XStudio Backtimer is a tool to help determine how much audio content remains to be played in the current hour versus how much time is left in the hour. Comparing these values produces an "over/under" time value that can be used as a reference in making on-the-fly adjustments. If XStudio is short of content, a negative value is displayed and if long, a positive value is displayed.
- A Music Search Dialog has been added. It can be used to search the imported music database for song titles, artist names and cart numbers. A selected song can be dragged directly from the dialog to the log, any cart deck (for immediate play), the audio clipboard and hot buttons. Features include grouping by artist, incremental search, filtering of data, saving filter criteria for later use, most recent search words and more.
- A new audio inventory manager has been introduced to replace the original inventory generation module. The XStudio Inventory Manager (InvMgr) stores data in a custom database. Performance is significantly better than previous implementations. While the initial inventory generation time (when XStudio is first started and an audio folder is assigned) is about the same as previously, subsequent updates to the inventory (adds, edits and deletes) is significantly faster. In addition, InvMgr-aware applications can connect to the inventory manager database to retrieve inventory information, if remote access is enabled in Preferences.
- The Broadcast Tools ADMS 44.22 audio switcher has been added to the list of supported resources.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.3.0.115 has been released.
[...More...]XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.3.0.115 has been released.
This update is recommended for
all users and includes enhancements and bug fixes:
- A new option in Preferences allows users to disable Auto-Commit of newly-recorded voice tracks. When disabled, the user is prompted to commit or discard the voice track. If discarded, the recording is deleted and no file copying occurs, if enabled.
- When a voice track recording is completed and committed, XStudio Voice Tracker now updates the corresponding log item's displayed length and the hourly totals display is updated.
- Copying of audio files to the transfer directory is now retried several times before notifying the user the copy has failed. If another program has locked a voice track file that is to be replaced, multiple attempts to copy the file increase the chance of success as the file may be released by the other program while XStudio Voice Tracker is retrying the copy operation.
- If XStudio Voice Tracker is unexpectedly disconnected from the audio engine, XStudio Voice Tracker will now attempt to reconnect, including restarting the audio engine service if stopped, at approximately 1-minute intervals. If the audio engine is running in console mode, no restart attempt is made.
XStudio Voice Tracker HomeRelease Notes
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.0.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v3.0.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A 4th playback deck has been added. Deck 4 behaves in the same way as Decks 2 & 3. It can be hidden or shown, you can use the audio clipboard or log as a source, and it can be the be target of drag and drop operations or hot buttons. The keyboard shortcut [Ctrl-4] can be used to start play and you can optionally assign a remote start button.
- The Automation Setup dialog's size, position and host monitor number (for multi-monitor systems) information is now saved on exit and the dialog's previous position, size and monitor location are restored the next time it is opened.
- Minor fixes.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of LogMerge v5.7.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of LogMerge v5.7.0!
This maintenance update is recommended for
all users of LogMerge and includes a few new features as well as a few fixes.
- The documentation and help system have been updated to work with the latest operating systems.
- Support has been added for RCS' Linker traffic records.
- A custom MusicMaster record type has been added for use when MusicMaster is combining music and traffic logs prior to using LogMerge to produce the finished output file.
See the LogMerge home page for complete details on this revision.
LogMerge Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.6.1!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.6.1!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- A new hot buttons dialog has been added. Called Cart Wall, it provides access an unlimited number of 300-button "sets" that can be loaded on-demand.
- When configuring a hot button using drag-and-drop, if the cart number falls within any of the defined Cart Categories, the category colors are automatically applied.
- The hot button configuration dialog now has added buttons for setting color combinations to the last-used combination or to the default color combination. A button to set the default background and text colors has also been added, along with some cosmetic improvements.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.6.0!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.6.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- An Intro Count Down Timer has been added. This feature can be optionally enabled to display a count down in seconds to the vocal of a song when the broadcast log contains the intro information.
- If XStudio gets disconnected from the audio engine, it will automatically try to reconnect to the audio engine.
- A number of cosmetic changes have been made, including new application icons and multiple monitor system awareness.
- This version of XStudio includes an updated XEngine, which corrects a problem that occurred if an outdated audio file was found in the primary audio path and a valid audio file existed in the backup audio path, the valid audio file was ignored. Additional changes have been made to prevent memory leaks when playing MPEG audio files.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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A maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- The host operating system is reported in more detail and has been updated to reflect the release of Windows 7.
- These products are now aware of multiple monitor host systems and properly save and restore their position on the correct monitor.
- A problem validating logs containing lower-case cart numbers has been corrected.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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crWebBB version 2.2.2.215 has been released.
This update is recommended for
all users and includes enhancements and bug fixes:
- Operating system detection has been updated to include the latest Microsoft products, including Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
- The documentation for setting up a host DCS or Maestro has been updated.
- RDS posting for the recently-added Inovonics 720 & 730 encoders was failing with an "unknown encoder" error. This problem has been corrected.
- A small memory leak leak that occurred in the host system communications module once during an application run has been eliminated.
crWebBB HomeRelease Notes
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A maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- This version introduces an all-new Preferences dialog. The preferences area has been completely redesigned, featuring a more logical organization of settings that is easier to use and understand. Some additional properties have been introduced, including control over application event logging detail and maximum size.
- A default station can now be assigned. When a default station is assigned, it is selected when a log, audit report or log reconcile window is initially displayed.
- When importing cart categories (cart masks), the imported categories can now be optionally appended to the existing categories.
- The Open Log and Audit dialogs have been updated for better performance when working with a station with a large number of available files.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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crWebBB version 2.2.0.200 has been released.
This update is recommended for
all users and includes enhancements and bug fixes:
- The text billboard and FTP upload functionality has been completely rewritten to use a threaded approach. Text billboards are now queued for writing to file and uploading. Posting can be delayed if synchronization with a web audio stream is needed. This change provides significant improvement in reliability of uploads, including multiple retries if the first connection attempt fails. crWebBB now always logs out from the host FTP site following an upload, eliminating "time-out" errors that could occur when the user selected a persistent connection and too much time elapsed between uploads.
- The general appearance of crWebBB has been improved, particularly when the host operating system is Windows XP and application skinning is not used.
crWebBB HomeRelease Notes
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XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.2.0.85 has been released.
[...More...]XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.2.0.85 has been released.
This update is recommended for
all users and includes enhancements and bug fixes:
- Users are no longer allowed to edit voice track cart properties if the cart is actively recording.
- The standard installation of XStudio Voice Tracker now prevents inadvertent "double-launch" of the application. Only one instance of XStudio Voice Tracker is allowed on each PC.
- Corrected a problem that occasionally occurred in an auto-track sequence if a user stopped playback of an intro before stopping the recording. On the very next auto-track sequence, the outro would play but the voice track recording would not start.
XStudio Voice Tracker HomeRelease Notes
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A maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- Log editing - Inventory information is now automatically refreshed when a log's associated inventory file changes.
- Log editing - Handling of malformed logs has been improved. Specifically, it has been observed that traffic logs produced by Wide Orbit occasionally contain invalid records, both under-sized and over-sized as a result of incorrect padding of the log record. If invalid log records cannot be handled, a message is displayed and the user can optionally view the log records that could not be processed.
- General - The main status bar has been updated with better-quality graphics and better visual appearance..
- General - If a user minimized the application and either rebooted the PC or logged out, the next time time it was launched, it would either show up on the task bar (minimized) or disappear altogether. In reality, the program was running, but the user could not see it. Now, the application will not restore itself to a minimized state on startup.
- General - The program would fail to launch on Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows NT4. This issue was introduced in the previous version and has been resolved.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.2!
[...More...] We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.2!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- The cart properties edit dialog has been updated to include .DAF file v1.4 information, if present.
- Minor cosmetic changes have been made to the XStudio main display. The Play Through Directives, Tomorrow's Log and Audio Engine Connection status LED's have been changed.
- This version of XStudio includes an updated XEngine, which corrects a playback problem with certain MPEG carts.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.1!
[...More...]We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.1!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- This version of XStudio includes an updated XEngine, which adds support for .DAF file Analog Gain Trim. XEngine now adjusts the playback level of a cart according to the Analog Gain Trim value for the audio file.
- Pending audit records are now persistent between sessions in XStudio. If XStudio is closed and there are pending audit records, they are saved to a data file and restored the next time XStudio is launched.
- A number of dialogs have been updated to be more visually consistent in the XP and Vista operating systems. Included are the log item edit displays, registration, machine ID, password and about XStudio dialogs.
- An unusual circumstance that would cause XStudio to replay the currently playing audio item has been corrected.
- A problem that occurred when running XStudio on newer Athlon dual-core processor machines has been corrected. On these types of machines, a log directive could be triggered and processed twice, causing undesired results.
See the XStudio
Release Notes for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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A maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- A number of dialogs have been updated to be more visually consistent in the XP and Vista operating systems. Included are the registration, machine ID, password and About dialogs.
- If a user manually edited the preferences file and changed a station number to a single-digit value or a value of more than 2 digits, a station's assigned station number would be incorrectly interpreted. This has been corrected.
- If the host PC has more than 2GB RAM installed, the reported amount of available RAM was incorrect. On PC's running Windows 2000, XP and Vista, the correct amount of RAM is now displayed.
- When previewing a printed report on-screen, context help would be inadvertently triggered if the user used [Right-Click] to reduce the size of the previewed information. Context help is now suppressed in the print preview displays.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.0!
[...More...]We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.5.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- This version of XStudio introduces an all-new Preferences dialog. The preferences area has been completely redesigned, featuring a more logical organization of settings that is easier to use and understand. Some additional properties have been introduced, including a start-up Action, additional control over system event logging, back-up audio path and control over the frequency of inventory scanning when using a network drive as the primary audio path.
- The documentation has been completely re-written and is now up-to-date with current version XStudio features and functionality. The help documentation is now supplied as a compiled HTML file (*.CHM), replacing the older Windows Help format (.HLP).
- A new installation program is now used that reduces the installer "footprint" and is simpler to use.
- The option to execute an Action at system start-up has been added. This Action is executed after XStudio has completed system initialization at start-up, right before attempting to play the log (if the feature is enabled and the operating mode supports auto-play at start-up).
- Real-time cart number macro character conversion has been added. Cart number are checked for macro characters and automatically converted when playing a log element, executing a directive that includes cart playback, and in the Start Play and Stop Play tasks.
- The Edit Spot Record and Edit Play Cart Directive dialogs now check the entered cart number to ensure that each character is valid for use in the cart number.
- Support has been added for the Load Window directive to set the current voice number.
- The hot button configuration dialog has been updated to allow using virtually any color combination for button background and text.
Follow the
Release Notes link on the XStudio home page for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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A minor maintenance update has been published for these products.
[...More...]A minor maintenance update has been published for these products. Changes include:
- Addition of a keyboard shortcut (Shift-F10) when editing logs for Save As... functionality.
- Correction of an error that occurred very occasionally the first time the application started up.
- A spelling error on the configuration security dialog has been corrected.
- Enhancements in cart number validation when editing cart (spot) records in ezSuite and ezEdit.
- Synchronization of version numbers across the "ez" series of software.
ezSuite Home ezEdit Home ezAudit Home
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XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.1.2.78 has been released.
[...More...]XStudio Voice Tracker version 1.1.2.78 has been released.
This updated is a minor maintenance update that includes a few enhancements and a bug fix:
- Rehearsal playback of multi-cut carts has been enhanced.
- The opening splash screen and selected dialogs have been updated.
- A bug that caused auto-track sequences to fail playback of Outro audio has been corrected.
XStudio Voice Tracker Home
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Customers can save 20% on dcsTools software products as we celebrate our new web site launch! During our "March Madness" promotion, when you use our on-line ordering system and a "coupon", all software products are discounted 20%. The full story has additional details and instructions on how to use the on-line coupon.
Read the full story...
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The new, completely redesigned dcsTools.com web site went online overnight.
[...More...]The new, completely redesigned dcsTools.com web site went online overnight.
The site features a more consistent, easier-to-use appearance along with a lot more content than our previous site. Here are some site highlights:
- Convenient Product Locator to find products by name, by usage & by location within the radio studio.
- On-Line Ordering is available for all software products.
- A powerful Site Search that's accessible from every page on the site. Both word and phrase searches are supported and search results include all PDF documentation that's on-line.
- Many of our products' help systems, manuals and Quick Start Guides are on-line. We intend to eventually add all product documentation to the site.
- Consolidated downloads and documentation pages to make it easier to find & retrieve needed files.
We hope you enjoy our new site! To let us know what you think of our new look, use the link below...
Comment on the web site
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dcsTools.com has announced the availability of secure on-line purchasing for all software products. Customers can order products using the currency and language of their choice, with 20 languages and 68 currencies to choose from.
Read the full story...
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We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.4.0!
[...More...]We are pleased to announce the release of XStudio v2.4.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of XStudio and includes a number of new features as well as a few fixes.
- Auto-segue can now optionally be automatically re-enabled when running in Automation mode and a user has disabled auto-segue to perform manual playback tasks.
- If the log has been edited within XStudio, users can now perform a "Quick Save" by clicking on the log status icon. Normal prompting for overwriting the existing log on disk will occur.
- Changing the default audio switcher, including changing the COM port that is used, is now automatically updated after the change without having to exit and restart XStudio.
- Users can now view or save to file a list of all XStudio current session properties, including log states, audio switcher information, and other pertinent data.
- Automation Task dialogs have been updated to improve the user experience in working with the dialogs.
- Improvements have been made in handling the transition from one log day to the next when XStudio is not actively playing audio, i.e. running a satellite-delivered program.
- A bug that caused XStudio to not properly process cast-off directives at precisely midnight has been corrected.
Follow the
Release Notes link on the XStudio home page for complete details on this revision.
XStudio Home
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XChange version 1.0.0.41 has been released. It is primarily a compatibility update for Maestro v3.3 users.
[...More...]XChange version 1.0.0.41 has been released. It is primarily a compatibility update for Maestro v3.3 users.
XChange has been updated to meet the file import requirements of Maestro v3.3 and above. The most significant changes are that XChange now writes a version 1.3 DAF file header and now creates a temporary file on the target audio volume initially, then renames it to the finished file name. The change to writing a temporary file first was made to combat the Maestro ACP Server v3.3.6 more aggressive behavior when importing files.
If you are using an older version of DCS that supports only DAF header version 1.2, you will need to update the software to version 1.6Z1 in order to use this version of XChange.
XChange Home
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Our free Time Zone Upater has been refreshed to include the August 2007 changes.
[...More...]Our free Time Zone Upater has been refreshed to include the August 2007 changes.
In the spring of 2007, daylight saving time (DST) start and end dates for the United States transitioned to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. There have also been other related DST changes, time zone behavior, and settings for other parts of the world, some taking effect in 2007, while others went into effect after some versions of Microsoft operating systems went end-of-life.
In August 2007, Microsoft published additional time zone changes not included in the original release in February 2007.
However, older operating systems, including Windows 98, Me, NT4 & 2000, are end-of-life products and no updates were made available by Microsoft.
As a service to users of older operating systems and to those concerned about the effects of the changes on DCS, Maestro & dcsTools products, we created a time zone update utility for these operating systems, along with information on the changes and how they affect these products. For details, go to our time zone update page.
Time Zone Changes Overview, Updater Download
