Windows Time Services

Managing Windows Time Services across a network from a central location.

There are 3 commands you run in order to ensure successful time server synchronization.

These commands can be run from the command line or you can create batch files to include all PC and server names in your network in one command. This article assumes you know how to create batch files and opening the command line. This article also assumes you are working in an Active Directory environment and that you know which server is your PDC emulator.

Preliminary steps;
Make sure Windows Time Service is enabled.

1. From your local computer. Go to start/run and type services.msc and hit enter.
2. The MMC pops up and you can right click services and select connect to another computer, next to another computer type the name of the machine you want to see and select ok.
3. Now you'll notice in the top left that the computer you're looking at is in parenthesis. Scroll down to the bottom and look at windows time. Now enable it and specify automatic as the startup type if this is not already the case. It won't let you if Domain Time Manager is installed and already configured in which case you'll need to disable that service before you can enable this.
4. Make sure the PDC emulator has its own SNTP server. The Time Server's SNTP server needs to be something like nist1-ny.WiTime.net (list currently at http://tf.nist.gov/service/time-servers.html)
   
   You can view the SNTP server on any machine by typing
   
   net time \\(computer that you want to see) /querysntp
   
   

Now you can run these commands from your computer, it's not necessary to run them on the local machine. The key is to follow the instructions in parenthesis because they specify the computer you're working on and the computer you're synchronizing from. One thing you cannot do remotely is change whether or not the computer is selected to automatically update with daylight savings time. That is impossible.

Now these three commands below will help you set the appropriate time services for any remote computers on your network (including the time server).

net time \\(computer that you want to set) /setsntp:(computer that is your time server)

w32tm /resync /computer:(computer that you want to set)

w32tm /config /computer:(computer you want to set)/manualpeerlist:(first time server you want to use),0x1 (second time server that you want to use),0x2 /syncfromflags:MANUAL

The third command includes a way to specify more than one server so you'll have redundancy in case a server goes out. Simple rule of thumb here is to designate a server that's closest to you and that means designating a server on your local network! When you're designating the time server’s time server then specify the one in New York if you're in New York.