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Time Synch Multiple Computers

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by borginva

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In my department, several computers' dates and time change. They go into the future. This is due to the way the network is set up with NT and 2000 systems. The system administrator says he can not do anything until everyone, one days, moves to 2k. Until then, it is up to me to help my department. I never have a problem with my system clock.

Now not everyone in my department has Internet access. I do. So I am looking for a time synch program, a freebie, to download so that we can set up several computers to synch their dates and times with mine.

Is that possible? Does anyone know of such a program I can down from the net?

Thanks.

8 replies

by sgt_shultz

here's how i did it on my mixed NT4 2k network:
1) got the free utility from www.NIST.gov for synching a computer to atomic clock time:
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/its.htm
2) installed it on the computer with access to the internet (let's say it's the computers name is //timekeeper)
3) ran this batch file on each computer:
net time \\timekeeper /set /yes
I run the batch file as part of each client computers login script...you could set it up instead as a scheduled task oneach computer...
hope this helps...

by borginva

Using step 3 on is what has worked. I created that batch file and put tasks in everyone's task manager, put the batch on their systems, and now the time will synch upon system start up, logon, and every hour (which is still being worked out). However, since most people log out and then in, this wil help out for the most part.
Thanks.

by bughunter

Review this link and show it to your Sys Admin. We have a mixed mode network and we use W32time.exe as our time synchronizer and it works fine.

Installation instructions
Log on to the system with local administrator privileges.
COPY W32TIME.EXE to %SystemRoot%\system32.
COPY W32TIME.INI to %SystemRoot%.
EDIT W32TIME.INI as necessary (see below for details)
Run W32TIME -AUTOMATIC or W32TIME -MANUAL, depending on how you want the service to start. Setting the service to ?Automatic? will automatically start the service each time you boot Windows NT. Setting the service to ?Manual? will require you to manually start the service when you want it to run.
If you decide to edit W32TIME.INI later, you must stop the W32Time service, runW32TIME -UPDATE from a command line to update the registry, and restart the W32Time service

Starting W32Time
Once the machine has been properly configured, you need to start the service on each machine before it will start synchronizing the time. There are a couple ways to do this:
Go to Control Panel, Services, Click on the ?Windows Time Service? and click the START Button in that dialog box.
From a Command Prompt, run ?NET START W32TIME?.
If you installed the W32Time service as Automatic, you can just reboot the machine, and the service will startup automatically.

by cavedweller

I have used the solution in #1. You also need to grant users the permission to change the system time (using user manager). This works best if the clocks don't drift to fast and users log out regularly since it only sets the time when they log in.

The software described in #2 is included in the NT-4 Server resource kit. It is very effective but is probably best if you install it in an image which you clone to install with. Adding it to more than a few machines is tedious.

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