Windows 7 - clocks wrong

[creative-2008]

We don't have an in house ICT department in my organisation and I'm pretty much responsible for liaising with external technicians. I'm fairly technical, but don't have a lot of experience with networks.

The clocks on most if not all of the Windows 7 machines are wrong. My assumption was that they would all be set by the server. Is this usually the case? Is this a common problem? I know that my current W8 laptop and every laptop/desktop I can remember owning syncs with time.windows.com Should this be the case with the workstations in my organisation? Are there any disadvantages to this?

Thanks in advance. Any advice at all would be helpful. It's a small, but irritating problem.

 

[Innocence]

If you have an AD domain, clients should be syncing with whatever DC they're authenticating to.
See : http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/archive/2010/06/27/time-configuration-in-a-windows-domain.aspx

If it's not a domain (or on SAMBA, etc) then it'll try to sync using Windows Time Service - but that will need direct internet access for UDP port 123 (no proxies).

And, obvious but have to say it, set the time zone correctly.

 

[creative-2008]

Yes we have AD. So either they're not syncing with that, or, more likely they are sycning with that but the clock on the server is wrong.

I've tried manually changing the time on my machine to the correct time, and it just reverts back later on.

 

[Innocence]

Yes we have AD. So either they're not syncing with that, or, more likely they are sycning with that but the clock on the server is wrong.

I've tried manually changing the time on my machine to the correct time, and it just reverts back later on.

Likely server time is wrong, or timezone is wrong on server and/or client.

 

[Wrench00]

You need to
1. Create a GPO for Making AD a Time Server
2. Create a GPO for Making Workstation Sync with Time Server.

or

Old Domain

Create a logon script to do a time sync.

One think to keep in mind that if you a have Domain Controller as a Time server and that particular DC is a Virtual Machine disable Time Host - Guest Sync because it will always mess your time up all the time. This is Recommended practice by MS.
Also avoid using non NTP type services like Windows Time. This messes people up all the time. time.windows.com <-sucks. I have had times the servers were overloaded and everything went to shit, especially if you got Kerberos.

I prefer using pool.ntp.org or a service like time.nist.gov.