Vista Ultimate NTP updates do not work

[Guest]

I absolutely cannot get NTP updates to work for Vista Ultimate. I've got a
public IP address (no PAT), and I'm not behind a firewall; I've tried
completely disabling the Windows firewall to no avail as well.

Unregistering and re-registering the w32tm service does not help. Here's the
batch file that I created which does nothing:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister [ignore error message]
w32tm /unregister [enter a second time]
w32tm /register
reg add hklm\system\currentcontrolset\services\w32time\parameters\ /v
NtpServer /t reg_sz /d time.nist.gov /f
net start w32time

Here are all the NTP server that I've tried:

time.windows.com does not update
time.nist.gov does not update
tick.usno.navy.mil does not update
time-nw.nist.gov does not update
time-a.nist.gov does not update
time-b.nist.gov does not update

I've read about other folks out there having problems with Windows NTP, but
none of the workarounds (not fixes, as there doesn't appear to have been one
released by Microsoft to fix the real problem...whatever it is) has worked
for me.

There's no way I'm going to pay 60 bucks to talk to someone at Microsoft
about a problem that seems to be affecting large numbers of users in the
community, so any help that someone could offer would be greatly appreciated.
Hopefully I can find someone out there who has figured out a way to work
around this problem.

Thanks,
David

 

[Chris Jacobs]

I absolutely cannot get NTP updates to work for Vista Ultimate. I've got a
public IP address (no PAT), and I'm not behind a firewall; I've tried
completely disabling the Windows firewall to no avail as well.

Are you SURE you are not behind a firewall?

My Windows Beveiligingscentrum says I am behind _two_ firewalls:

McAfee Personal Firewall ingeschakeld
Windows Firewall ingeschakeld

But I _know_ I am actually behind _three_ firewalls.

My SpeedTouch 546 ADSL modem has a built-in firewall as well.

In my case to get NTP working I had to open the NTP 123 port in just one of
the firewalls, the McAfee one.

 

[Guest]

I am absolutely certain that I am not behind a firewall (I engineer the
network, and we are a service provider). I do not use personal firewall
software, and I do not have a network firewall or a SOHO-type NAT/PAT router.
This machine is on a public network, with a public IP address, and the
associated routers are Juniper, Foundry and Cisco (doing nothing but moving
lots of bits--no firewall or ACL services).

One may question the sanity of having a Windows (especially Vista) machine
exposed in this manner, but the risks associated with this particular system
are low.

I'm going to try an explicit permit on the Windows fw for UDP 123, just in
case "disabling" the fw doesn't really do everything you'd expect. I don't
hold much hope, though, and figure I'll be calling Dell to swap out the OS
for XP--it's quite sad that PC manufacturers are having to fall back to
allowing that option.