Some applications on my network were having issues because the workstation clocks had the wrong time. I had to fix this but did not want to manually change it on every workstation. I did not want the user to have to always update this either. What I did is checked the time server my domain controller was using to sync with. It was set to time.windows.com. I used the NET TIME /QUERYSNTP command to check the NTP server.
I then went to Microsoft’s time server list here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262680 tracked down the correct time server. Once I found the NTP server I wanted to use I set the Configure Windows NTP client GPO to reflect this so all of the workstations would sync with this time server. Here is the GPO path:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Windows Time Service\Time Providers
I checked the next day and all of the computers on my network had the correct time.
If you don’t want to wait you can run the following commands to stop and start the time service on your clients:
net stop w32time
net start w32time
Some more info on NTP/time servers:
Link to an article on NTP:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Configuring-Windows-Time-Service.html
NET TIME command:
Use the following command to see what server you sync with to get your time:
NET TIME /QUERYSNTP
Use the following command to see set the server you want to sync with to get your time:
NET TIME /SETSNTP[:ntp server fqdn goes here]
Use the following command to see the different options with the net time command:
NET TIME ?
