Windows Help and Support

[Guest]

Hey guys, very simple, always skip the obvious....I updated my time frame by
nist.gov and did nothing. Today, I updated by windows time, and "Voila",
everytime I click Help and Support, the date is correct....Curiosity killed
the cat. I think not....Thanks to you all....Debbie

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Debbie,

Glad that your Help and Support Did you know? updated.

I believed that synchronizing the time on your computer clock was
coincidental. But I tried it anyway and...

Did you know? Updated: Saturday, 15 October, 2005

Son of a gun!

I wonder if this has to do with the fact that I normally have the Windows
Time service disabled and only start it once in a while when I synchronize
my clock manually.

If this is true, then if one has the Windows Time service set to Automatic
and Windows sets synchronization to occur weekly, then Did you know? should
be updated at least weekly. And if one were to synchronize their clocks
more often then Did you know? should update more often.

I should have looked before I synchronized my clock this time to see when
the last time it had been synchronized was. I suspect that Tuesday, 30
August, 2005 was when that happened since that's what Did you know? was
stuck on.

Anyone else want to test this?

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[frodo]

Well, poster "Alias" in another group suggested opening IE before opening
H&S, saying it would then update ok. I tried it, and BINGO, it did update
today, Sat 15 Oct.

Now, it is possible it was just a coincidence, maybe something is just
"good" at the server end today, but it did update for me using this
method. I'll try again in the next several days and see if it's a real
solution or not. Very interesting....

 

[Guest]

Thanks to everyone for the followups. I was only delaying something much
worse. I have a virus that corrupted my registry. Stole all my good icons and
my windows installed does not work. Yes, I tried every post, I tried Doug
Knox and Kelly's tips (you know she is from Louisiana also). Therefore I have
just finished backing up anything of importance to DVD's....Wish me
well...Debbie

 

[Wesley Vogel]

I saw that post by Alias after I had already synchronized my clock.

You may be correct, a coincidence may be possible and MS's server may be
just working good today.

Or maybe the clock in MS's server only gets synchronized every couple of
months. LOL

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Wesley Vogel]

I wish you well, Debbie. Good luck! ;-)

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[frodo]

Well, poster "Alias" in another group suggested opening IE before opening
H&S, saying it would then update ok. I tried it, and BINGO, it did update
today, Sat 15 Oct.
Now, it is possible it was just a coincidence, maybe something is just
"good" at the server end today, but it did update for me using this
method. I'll try again in the next several days and see if it's a real
solution or not. Very interesting....

Following up: today, monday, launched H&S WITHOUT first opening IE, and
it updated fine. So, no definative conclusions yet...

I guess the real questions is WHY would synching the time make it work, or
WHY would opening IE first make it work? What in XP is deciding to filter
the xml files if the time is "off"? Or what dll gets loaded by IE that
suddenly makes it work? The mechanism MUST be there. [I've been writting
software since..., well a long time, and there is always a mechanism -
there are no ghosts in the machine, just bugs.]