AutoHotKey is one of two things I miss when I'm on Mac. You can duplicate the functionality in various ways but there isn't a single tool that's both a full scripting language and a simple hotstring/hotkey tool.

The startup script for AHK is in the same directory as the AutoHotKey executable and has the same name but with a .ahk extension. By default that's C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\AutoHotkey.ahk but if your AHK is installed in C:\bin and named ahk.exe then the startup script will be C:\bin\ahk.ahk.

To get the time zone on Windows:

Run “w32tm /tz” and parse the bit after “TIME_ZONE_ID_” to determine STANDARD or DAYLIGHT.

w32tm /tz
Time zone: Current:TIME_ZONE_ID_STANDARD Bias: 300min (UTC=LocalTime+Bias)

:*:;tz::
  RegREad, TimeZone, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\TimeZoneInformation, TimeZoneKeyName
  if (InStr(TimeZone, "Standard"))
    TimeZone := "EST"
  else if (InStr(TimeZone, "Daylight"))
    TimeZone := "EDT"
  else
    TimeZone := "ET"

  SendInput, %TimeZone%
Return