Microsoft will support leap seconds in Windows 10

The latest article from Microsoft’s official technology blog introduces Windows 10’s support for leap seconds, since then the leap second no longer relies on the system server for proofreading.

The reason for the occurrence of leap seconds is that it is affected by the speed of the Earth’s rotation on the atomic time scale, usually, it will deviate from the sun or solar time of about 0.9 seconds.

Therefore, since 1972, when the leap second occurs every 18 months, the fine deviation of the atomic time scale is calibrated by inserting leap seconds.

For the average person, there is no effect on the leap second or the adjustment of the leap second, but it is essential for high-precision applications and cloud services.

For example, the accuracy of the European Union for time accuracy is required to be 100 microseconds, so the millisecond precision supported by Windows 10 is no longer sufficient.

At the same time, Microsoft will automatically synchronise in five minutes to process leap seconds through a domain-based solution. To improve the accuracy, Microsoft will eventually replace it with a new solution.

Typically, the hexadecimal number used in the time does not exist for 60 seconds, so the carry-in is required after 59 seconds, so the 60th second is not displayed.

Microsoft’s latest solution is to use the 60th second as a leap second, for example, when there are leap seconds, 23:59:60.

The advantage of this is that it is no longer necessary to calibrate in five minutes via the NTP time server, which is very long for high-precision programs.

This feature is supported by Windows 10 RS5, which is the official release of Windows 10 Version 1809 and Windows Server 2019.