Hi, I'm trying to keep the clock on the workstations within the domain in sync with the time on the (only) domain controller. I'm looking to have no more than 2/3 seconds difference as this is critical for some real-time updates that are shared over the network.
I think I did everything OK (configured the w32time service on the clients trough group policy, set to sync with DC, configured the server so sync with an external NTP server (pool of servers at ntp.org ) and it's actually working fine for some clients. However, when I use a tool called LMCheck to see time differences, I see time drifting apart again... When I use the w32tm /resync /rediscover it completes without errors and actually syncs the time for a while then drifts again.
I disabled the windows NTP server trough group policy on the clients to make sure they do not sync with each other but only with the DC but it still seems as if they copy each others time. (some clients all show the same offset , ie 14 seconds)
Also, when I run net time /querysntp on a client, it shows time.windows.com instead of the name of the DC that I set trough group policy. Is the net time different from the Windows Time Service? If so, how do I disable the net TIME as that might be why clocks drift off again? Thanks for your thoughts, I must be overlooking something.
regards
Tijs
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Hi 65td,
Thanks for your comment. THe link you post seems to apply to 2003 servers that are joined to the domain. My problem is related to XP Pro SP2 clients joined to a 2003 SBS domain. THe 2003 SBS server (DC) is syncing time correctly with an external source, but the XP pc's don't seem to pick it up although I've set the group policy to configure the time service...
Any ideas how to troubleshoot this? THanks!
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Answer for Membership
by: 65tdPosted on 2007-02-23 at 21:21:57ID: 18601000
Note When you join a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer to a domain, the computer may not synchronize its time setting with the time setting of the domain controller if the Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server check box in the Date and Time Properties dialog box is not selected. The default option (NTP) for Windows Server 2003 workgroup computers is disabled if the Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server check box is not selected. When you join the computer to a domain that has this setting, the default synchronization type (Nt5DS) for computers that are joined to a domain is not set and the time service does not synchronize from the domain hierarchy.
see MS article at: http://support.microsoft.c