Various areno[d]annulated 3-mono-and 3,3-disubstituted 2,3-dihydro-[1,2]benzisothiazole 1,1-dioxides undergo a facile rearrangement into the corresponding 2,3-dihydro-2-hydroxy-[1,2]benzisothiazole 1-oxides upon irradiation at 254 nm in methanol. The latter represent a new, but labile functional group, i.e. the cyclic version of the sulfine hydroxamic acid. When C-3 in the starting materials is substituted by one methyl or phenyl only, that photoisomer is formed preferentially which has the sulfoxide O atom in an anti-orientation to the said substituent. 2-Alkoxymethyl substituted starting materials show the same type of formal oxygen shift. The structures of all photoproducts have been assigned largely from 1 H NMR data and unambiguously corroborated by X-ray crystal structure analyses of two photoproducts.