# Solved: Server Time Settings



## dragonhawk26 (Jan 11, 2007)

Quick question.

If I change the time on our server, will it filter down to anyone's computer that is connected to that server? Also, if I change the server time will it cause any harm to the programs being run on the server and any connected computers?

It seems that anyone that is connected to the server has the incorrect time on their PC, but when they change it gets changed back. 

I'm also not entirely sure why the server isn't synching to time.windows.com.

Thanks for the help anyone out there.


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## centauricw (Jun 26, 2010)

Client PCs time will only get automatically updated if they are domain members. In this case, they will update their time from one of the domain controllers. This will normally be the DC that holds the PDC FSMO role. In workgroup, then, no, they will not automatically update their time unless they are configured to do so either through the Windows Time configuration or by using a script.

Generally, changing the time on a server will not adversely impact running programs, although all servers in an AD domain should use the same time source to prevent time skew issues for kerberos tickets.

time.windows.com is the default NTP time source for every single Windows computer. Naturally, it's extremely overloaded and unreliable. The first thing I do is to change the time source to use the NTP Pool servers (see http://www.pool.ntp.org). Setting a Windows Server (2003 and higher) to use the NTP Pool servers is a simple process. In a domain environment on the domain controller with the PDC FSMO, or on a standalone server that you want to be the reliable time source for the client computers, use these commands:


```
w32tm /config "/manualpeerlist:0.us.pool.ntp.org 1.us.pool.ntp.org 2.us.pool.ntp.org 3.us.pool.ntp.org" /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

net stop w32time

net start w32time
```
The other domain controllers should automatically be configured to update from the domain controller with the PDC, but you can manually set them as well. (You net to stop and start the Windows Time Service as above, but I'm not including those commands since they don't change.)


```
w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /reliable:no /update
```
All member servers and workstations in a domain will automatically update from the PDC domain controller. It's location is advertised in the DNS zone for the domain. In a workgroup, you can update the time of other servers and workstations from another server by using this command:


```
NET TIME \\your-server-name /SET /YES
```
You can also set them to individually update from the NTP Pool servers using this command:


```
w32tm /config "/manualpeerlist:0.us.pool.ntp.org 1.us.pool.ntp.org 2.us.pool.ntp.org 3.us.pool.ntp.org" /syncfromflags:manual /update
```
The NTP Pool Project has servers all over the world, so if you are in the UK (for example), you could replace the above command with this instead:


```
w32tm /config "/manualpeerlist:0.uk.pool.ntp.org 1.uk.pool.ntp.org 2.uk.pool.ntp.org 3.uk.pool.ntp.org" /syncfromflags:manual /update
```


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## dragonhawk26 (Jan 11, 2007)

Thank you very much centauricw. This helped out quite a bit!


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