Keeping the Clock Up to Date

[W. Watson]

In XP one can keep their machine's clock in synch with the Internet Time
tab. Is it possible to do this easily in W2K? I see no similar tab.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"Most people are alike -- except for
Republicans and Democrats." -- Groucho Marx

 

[Tracey]

I am using [nistime-32bit.exe] from http://tf.nist.gov/service/its.htm.

I am planning on running a batch file with the Windows Scheduler
(nistime-32bit once).

Tracey

 

[Jim Howes]

In XP one can keep their machine's clock in synch with the Internet Time
tab. Is it possible to do this easily in W2K? I see no similar tab.

WinNT/2K does not have built-in NTP support; WinXP does, but it's list of
servers is fairly difficult to configure, requiring various registry edits to
add your own servers (ideally, you should use one or more servers that are
fairly close to you on the network). (Perhaps there is some tool or other that
sets this without resorting to hacking on
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers ??)

http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/ is a 'Careware' (See the licence terms on
the site) program that will run on any windows machine; On XP it does require
that the user running it have administrator rights in order to set the clock;
similarly on Win2K, however you can allow non-adminstrators to set the system
time via local security policy - Start, Run, GPEDIT.MSC, and navigate down through
Local Computer Policy
+ Windows Settings
+ Security Settings
+ Local Policies
+ User Rights Assignment
and look at 'Change the system time'
Add appropriate users/groups and reboot

AboutTime can be run on a machine that has internet access, and can provide
SNTP, Time, and Daytime services to clients, although I usually turn this off.
You can configure it for any NTP server

 

[walterius]

Try About Time, http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/index.html

It's old but IMO it is still the fastest and the best.

 

[VideoReDo Sucks]

In XP one can keep their machine's clock in synch with the Internet Time
tab. Is it possible to do this easily in W2K? I see no similar tab.

I use the free version of Dimension 4:
http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/download.htm

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

In XP one can keep their machine's clock in synch with the Internet Time
tab. Is it possible to do this easily in W2K? I see no similar tab.

From a command prompt or Start/Run:

NET TIME /SETSNTP:ipaddress or dns address
(example: NET TIME /SETSNTP:time-c.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov)

NET TIME /QUERYSNTP to get the current setting

NET TIME /SETSNTP to clear any setting

By default, if no SNTP is set, it tries to sync with it's domain
controller, if in a domain.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

From a command prompt or Start/Run:

NET TIME /SETSNTP:ipaddress or dns address
(example: NET TIME /SETSNTP:time-c.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov)

NET TIME /QUERYSNTP to get the current setting

NET TIME /SETSNTP to clear any setting

By default, if no SNTP is set, it tries to sync with it's domain
controller, if in a domain.

I forgot to add that you need to make certain that the Windows Time
service is running. It should normally be set to Automatic so it starts
up every time. You can manually start it from Start/Control
Panel/Administrator Tools/Services, or from the command line:
NET START W32TIME

You may also need to configure any firewalls to allow port 123 UDP
through.

 

[Tim Judd]

From a command prompt or Start/Run:

NET TIME /SETSNTP:ipaddress or dns address
(example: NET TIME /SETSNTP:time-c.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov)

NET TIME /QUERYSNTP to get the current setting

NET TIME /SETSNTP to clear any setting

By default, if no SNTP is set, it tries to sync with it's domain
controller, if in a domain.

Good! I recommend original software to do the tasks (keep the system
clean, and all that).

"net time" stuff is to set the paramaters (which are stored in the
registry, otherwise mentioned in this thread). w32tm is used to put
this data to use. These same tools are gone in WinXP, so a scripting
setup for a domain with mixed 2k/XP won't work.

Personally, I favor the method Win2000 is using to accomplish this task.