Unable to sync time

[KG]

I still can't sync the system clock for more than a day or two. If I follow the instructions on
http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/index.html, when I get to the step Create Task and give it
a name nothing happens, create task blinks but no windows or menu change and nothing accepts key
board input.to enter a name.
It's easy to set up a scheduled task which ensures the Windows Time service is available and then
runs W32tm.exe /resync once a day, or as often as you like:

Open Task Scheduler (on Vista and above, just type that into the Start Menu and you'll find
it).

Find the Microsoft / Windows / Time Synchronization branch and click Create Task...

THIS IS Where the system does not accept key board input!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(You can create the task anywhere but you might as well keep things tidy.)

Give the new task a name. I called mine Actually Synchronize Time.

As a aside I receive an error upon opening Task Scheduler stating
"The selected task "{0}" no longer exist. To see the current tasks, click Refresh"

And if I click refresh nothing happens.

Any assistance would be appreciated.
*****************
Thank You (e-mail address removed)

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first." - Ronald Reagan

To reply to this email please remove the AT
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[thanatoid]

I still can't sync the system clock for more than a day or
two. If I follow the instructions on

<snip>

WHY use ANY Microsoft utility or program unless it is ESSENTIAL
to the OS?
The less MS programs you use, the better.

Here are just TWO free time sync programs. I don't know if they
will work on Win7, but they should. Plus I bet they're 20 times
smaller than whatever the MS crap is.

http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/features.htm
http://www.luziusschneider.com/TimeSyncHome.htm

Older IS better.

Just /reading/ this gives me a headache:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-
windows_programs/windows-7-time-sync-runs-update-weekly-how-do-
i/3ad0278b-370d-416d-867a-534729ca7d32

Sigh.

 

[James Silverton]

<snip>

WHY use ANY Microsoft utility or program unless it is ESSENTIAL
to the OS?
The less MS programs you use, the better.

MS (Control Panel > Clock, Language and Region) seems to have worked
well with pool.ntp.org for the past eight months.


--


James Silverton, Potomac

I'm *not* (e-mail address removed)

 

[James Silverton]

<snip>

WHY use ANY Microsoft utility or program unless it is ESSENTIAL
to the OS?
The less MS programs you use, the better.

MS (Control Panel > Clock, Language and Region) seems to have worked
well with pool.ntp.org for the past eight months.


--


James Silverton, Potomac

I'm *not* (e-mail address removed)

 

[Char Jackson]

MS (Control Panel > Clock, Language and Region) seems to have worked
well with pool.ntp.org for the past eight months.

Exactly. I'm not sure why a person would use a Scheduled Task or worse
yet, a third party utility, to do what Windows will happily do
already. There must be more to the story.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I still can't sync the system clock for more than a day or two. If I follow the instructions on
http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/index.html, when I get to the step Create Task and give it
a name nothing happens, create task blinks but no windows or menu change and nothing accepts key
board input.to enter a name.
It's easy to set up a scheduled task which ensures the Windows Time service is available and then
runs W32tm.exe /resync once a day, or as often as you like:

Open Task Scheduler (on Vista and above, just type that into the Start Menu and you'll find
it).

Find the Microsoft / Windows / Time Synchronization branch and click Create Task...

THIS IS Where the system does not accept key board input!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(You can create the task anywhere but you might as well keep things tidy.)

Give the new task a name. I called mine Actually Synchronize Time.

As a aside I receive an error upon opening Task Scheduler stating
"The selected task "{0}" no longer exist. To see the current tasks, click Refresh"

And if I click refresh nothing happens.

Any assistance would be appreciated.
*****************
Thank You (e-mail address removed)

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first." - Ronald Reagan

To reply to this email please remove the AT
after the kgs in the reply to address as shown above.

There is a built-in Windows time sync operating by default. Why not go
back to that? It works fine for me, and I'm someone who always set up a
third party sync in my older versions of Windows.

Since I didn't set it up myself, I can't tell you how to get back to it.
Try Google, or search the windows site.

 

[Char Jackson]

There is a built-in Windows time sync operating by default. Why not go
back to that? It works fine for me, and I'm someone who always set up a
third party sync in my older versions of Windows.

Since I didn't set it up myself, I can't tell you how to get back to it.
Try Google, or search the windows site.

Right click on the clock in the System tray (or whatever we're calling
the Notification Area this week), then select "Adjust date/time".
Finally, select the Internet Time tab. The coarse settings can be made
there. Fine tuning is done via the registry, if necessary.

 

[thanatoid]

MS (Control Panel > Clock, Language and Region) seems to
have worked well with pool.ntp.org for the past eight
months.

D4 is totally automatic (OR manual) and has a hell of a bunch of
cool settings.
But whatever, I shouldn't even BE in this group...

 

[thanatoid]

<snip>

Well, I am SO glad that you are a shiny happy Microsoft user.
Bill Gates and all the Chinese hardware manufacturers and all
the "ver. 14, HAVE to upgrade because we changed the file
format" people love you.

And D4 is NOT a scheduled task, it's a tiny free utility by one
of the many people who have made the smelly rat's nest that
Windows possible to work with. None of the releases are usable
out of the box, and if you think otherwise, then the discussion
ends here.

(You may be glad to know MS is hard at work on Win8, or will it
be 6.2????)

Sigh.

 

[Paul]

Exactly. I'm not sure why a person would use a Scheduled Task or worse
yet, a third party utility, to do what Windows will happily do
already. There must be more to the story.

It may have to do with the update algorithm.

With the Microsoft built-in function, it's pretty hard to tell
how many days go between sync attempts. A third party tool,
may allow you to set the sync rate. Yes, it is possible to
adjust the update rate on the Microsoft function, but try and
read the log file (sheer garbage).

When there is a hardware or software problem causing clock drift
(like Nforce2 spurious interrupt problem), cranking up the
sync rate will *never* fix it. So it's kinda a foolish mission
to be on...

The Network Time Protocol, has the ability to compute a first order
drift rate, and "leak out" updates more frequently than the sync
interval, giving the appearance of a locked clock. If your drift
is due to a simple delta between the quartz crystal and the
correct value, NTP takes care of it nicely. NTP can't take care
of the spurious interrupt case, as the clock rate can vary
plus minus a large percentage value, over the period of a minute.
And no matter how frequently you sync, it's just a waste of time.
There was a thread on such attempts, over in the nforcershq forums
a few years back, with huge drifts noted. So if there is an
underlying problem (lost ticks or spurious interrupts), NTP
won't fix it.

Paul

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

With the Microsoft built-in function, it's pretty hard to tell
how many days go between sync attempts.

It says "once a week" in Help and Support but it sometimes slips a
day.

Steve

--
Neural network applications, help and support.

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SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

 

[KG]

SNIP

There is a built-in Windows time sync operating by default. Why not go
back to that? It works fine for me, and I'm someone who always set up a
third party sync in my older versions of Windows.

Since I didn't set it up myself, I can't tell you how to get back to it.
Try Google, or search the windows site.

That was my 1st move, but it would only sync until the system was powered down,
Then it would not re sync unless I forced it through(Date and time, change date & time settings,
Internet time, change settings, update now then click OK)
The various solutions I try ed were from google & MS answers, but nothing appears to work beyond a
day or two.
GOD I love Windows 7, with out it I might be doing something useful.
*****************
Thank You (e-mail address removed)

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first." - Ronald Reagan

To reply to this email please remove the AT
after the kgs in the reply to address as shown above.

 

[Paul]

That was my 1st move, but it would only sync until the system was powered down,
Then it would not re sync unless I forced it through(Date and time, change date & time settings,
Internet time, change settings, update now then click OK)
The various solutions I try ed were from google & MS answers, but nothing appears to work beyond a
day or two.
GOD I love Windows 7, with out it I might be doing something useful.

It's a "service", so perhaps you should look at services and
see whether it is set to start automatically ?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773061(WS.10).aspx

Go to Control Panels, look for the word Administration and
from there, look for Services. In Services, there is a
Windows Time service. Mine is set to "manual" and is
currently "started". I would have thought it would have
another state than that, but that's what my Windows 7 laptop
shows.

In the Properties of that service, it also has responses, for
what is supposed to happen if the service crashes or dies.
The service can retry, but obviously, doing that
indefinitely, is just an infinite loop and useless.

The machine I'm typing this on, runs WinXP. And there is a
log file w32time.log on there, with a ton of garbage
in it. I didn't see that file on the Windows 7 laptop,
and I'm not sure what it means.

The Windows Time service has no dependencies, so it doesn't
look like it's failing because some other service is turned
off.

You could also check Event Viewer, and see if any Windows Time
service events have occurred, such as the service crashed or
whatever. There may be an error message waiting for you there.

I changed mine to use pool.ntp.org, and at first it complained
it was getting an error. But once I closed the Data and Time
control panel and opened it again, it claimed to have
successfully contacted the pool.

To follow up on the .log file issue, you could try a search,
looking for all .log files, and see if anything interesting
is returned by the search. I didn't try that, when I looked
at my laptop.

Paul

 

[Nil]

Here are just TWO free time sync programs. I don't know if they
will work on Win7, but they should. Plus I bet they're 20 times
smaller than whatever the MS crap is.

You'd be betting wrong.

 

[Nil]

D4 is totally automatic (OR manual) and has a hell of a bunch of
cool settings.

Not really. D4 only works after the user logs in. Windows built-in time
sync is a system service that works when the OS starts.

But whatever, I shouldn't even BE in this group...

You will be allowed to stay if you stop whining about the problems you
create as if they are Microsoft's responsibility.

 

[Nil]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:49:19 -0400, James Silverton


Exactly. I'm not sure why a person would use a Scheduled Task or
worse yet, a third party utility, to do what Windows will happily
do already. There must be more to the story.

Vista's and Win7's time sync worked perfectly for me out of the box. I
had trouble with XP's ntp time sync feature, so I use D4 on that box,
but no need to do that with 7 and Vista.

 

[Char Jackson]

And D4 is NOT a scheduled task, it's a tiny free utility by one
of the many people who have made the smelly rat's nest that

Yeah, and I covered that possibility by saying, "or even worse, a 3rd
party utility." There's no need for such a utility since the
capability it provides is built in and works well.

Windows possible to work with. None of the releases are usable
out of the box, and if you think otherwise, then the discussion
ends here.

For many people, all of the Windows versions have been quite usable
out of the box, so I guess the discussion really does end here. Yay!

 

[Char Jackson]

It says "once a week" in Help and Support but it sometimes slips a
day.

And that's just the default. You can set it to whatever you like in
the registry. My usual settings are once hourly or once daily.

 

[Char Jackson]

It may have to do with the update algorithm.

With the Microsoft built-in function, it's pretty hard to tell
how many days go between sync attempts.

XP tells you straight up when the last sync occurred and when the next
is scheduled. It's right there on the Internet Time tab when you open
the Date/time properties. Otherwise, it's easy enough to just check
the Registry, so there shouldn't be any trouble being able to tell how
much time elapses between sync attempts.

A third party tool,
may allow you to set the sync rate. Yes, it is possible to
adjust the update rate on the Microsoft function, but try and
read the log file (sheer garbage).

Ignore the log file and go straight to the Registry.

 

[Char Jackson]

That was my 1st move, but it would only sync until the system was powered down,
Then it would not re sync unless I forced it through(Date and time, change date & time settings,
Internet time, change settings, update now then click OK)
The various solutions I try ed were from google & MS answers, but nothing appears to work beyond a
day or two.

Make sure your BIOS has the correct date and time, then power off the
computer. Wait a bit and power it back on, checking the BIOS once
again. If the BIOS date/time have reverted to their default values you
may have a dead CMOS battery on the motherboard, if you're lucky.