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Windows 7 Clock Sync

B

BobOnTheJob

Windows 7 syncs it's internal clock to an Internet time server once a week. Amazingly, this can be changed! The example I found is for having it sync every 5 minutes (a bit extreme) but the choices are quite generous. Here's how : After entering Administrative tools and going into task scheduler, there is a drop down list in the bottom pane. Use the slider to the right to get to it. It should be the 3rd window down.Use the slider on that window and go down to "synchronize time". Double click on the line for that, and it will open a three pane window. click once on "Synchronize..." (that's all that will show of "Synchronize Time"). in the right pane, click "Properties". Click once on that and it will open "SynchronizeTime Properties (Local Computer). Choose the "Triggers" tab . The default is "Weekly - Every Sunday at 1:00 am". Highlight that and click the "edit" button at the bottom of that pane. A new window titled "Edit Trigger" will open. Select the fill-in bubble "daily" in the "settings" section, and "repeat task every:" in the "advanced settings" section. Select "5 min." from the drop down list, and click "OK" on the panes that you can, and close the others.

I walked through this and changed mine to once an hour from once a week...I can't yet say that it worked but it did accept the changes. Granted, there are lots of utilities to do this but if Windows can do it on it's own, that's how I'm gonna roll.
 
Neat tip! I've set it for once an hour. However, I'm not using the Windows time server. I'm using time.apple.com.

R
 
The link below leads to a Windows clock sync app that is working well for me on all of my various PCs using WIN XP, Vista Home Premium, WIN 7 Starter on a netbook, and WIN 8. Time update intervals can be set by the user.

http://www.timesynctool.com/
 
ChiefOperator said:
Thanks for that. I'm running Tardis and AboutTime on the machines now. Please report back how well it works out for you.
Click to expand...
Shouldn't take long to see how it works...left uncorrected, my SPL automation starts audibly missing the TOH after about 1 day.
 
I makes me wonder why anybody would use any sort of app change the clock when a simple registry key fix can do the trick. I've been doing that with XP Pro for years.

BobOnTheJob brings up what seems to be the preferred method for doing this under Windows 7. I had done some research and from what I remember the reg key is a little different from what it is in XP Pro. I came across this article about Change windows time synchronization interval which seems to agree with the article I used long ago on how to Adjust Internet Time Synchronization for Windows XP. I don't know what, if anything, has changed but I've had good luck just changing the SpecialPollInterval reg value.

Edited to add: I found an article Make Windows synchronize time more often (The method Bob outlined above) that appears to discredt registry change remedy as being a workable fix for changing the time sync interval. I'm going to have to compare the two to see if there's any real difference. It always seemed to be solid on the automation systems I apply the regkey to.
 
Bill DeFelice said:
I makes me wonder why anybody would use any sort of app change the clock when a simple registry key fix can do the trick. I've been doing that with XP Pro for years.

BobOnTheJob brings up what seems to be the preferred method for doing this under Windows 7. I had done some research and from what I remember the reg key is a little different from what it is in XP Pro. I came across this article about Change windows time synchronization interval which seems to agree with the article I used long ago on how to Adjust Internet Time Synchronization for Windows XP. I don't know what, if anything, has changed but I've had good luck just changing the SpecialPollInterval reg value.

Edited to add: I found an article Make Windows synchronize time more often (The method Bob outlined above) that appears to discredt registry change remedy as being a workable fix for changing the time sync interval. I'm going to have to compare the two to see if there's any real difference. It always seemed to be solid on the automation systems I apply the regkey to.
Click to expand...
Please do let us know what you find when comparing the two. My time is off by 2-3 seconds this morning so I'm not confident that this is working. Back to the experimental lab...
 
Because Station Play List was mentioned, I'm only assuming there is streaming involved. If I'm wrong, I apologize. My only question about this concern about making your systems exactly on time isn't such a huge issue in the streaming world, due to the built in 20-40+ seconds of delay before your listeners hear that TOH imaging play. I set my system to refresh the time every 12 hours and it keeps it pretty well on-time. I have it do it around 5am and then at 5pm. My programming begins at 6am, so that keeps things on-track.

Again, if you're using SPL on a terrestrial station, bravo and disregard my questioning.

Thanks.
 
If you change the registry key, you must restart the computer before the change will take effect.
 
Timmy said:
Because Station Play List was mentioned, I'm only assuming there is streaming involved. If I'm wrong, I apologize. My only question about this concern about making your systems exactly on time isn't such a huge issue in the streaming world, due to the built in 20-40+ seconds of delay before your listeners hear that TOH imaging play. I set my system to refresh the time every 12 hours and it keeps it pretty well on-time. I have it do it around 5am and then at 5pm. My programming begins at 6am, so that keeps things on-track.

Again, if you're using SPL on a terrestrial station, bravo and disregard my questioning.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

You might want to open your mind just a bit. There are many reasons why some of us want our PC clocks to be as accurate as possible, besides for terrestrial broadcast use.

R
 
Thanks for the timely tip!
 
This still isn't working for me. I have two triggers set...Daily at 7:58AM and Daily at 7:58PM. I've restarted the PC and as of this morning, the clock is 7 seconds fast. I'm doing something wrong...just not sure what it is yet.

SPL on a part 15 terrestrial station...I'm the only one who knows if my watch beeping at the TOH doesn't perfectly coincide with the start of the first song of the new hour...but I want to make this seemingly simple process work for when I need it for something really important!
 
Here's the real deal:
Type services.msc in the Windows start menu search box.
Scroll down to Windows Time, and click Stop the service.
Leave Services open

Open RegEdit. BACK UP THE REGISTRY!
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NTPClient\SpecialPollInterval
Edit the DWORD value from the default 0x93A80 (604800 decimal) to 0x3480 (14400 decimal) and click OK. This changes the poll interval from 1 week to 4 hours, which should be sufficient to keep the clock within 0.1 seconds unless the computer's clock is really hosed.
Close RegEdit.

Go back to Services and Start the Windows Time service.

Make sure your firewall will allow NTP through.

Works on XP, Vista, 7 (and I suspect 8, too.)
 
OK...progress. Reading back to my original post, following that & simply editing the trigger to set the time all 7 days rather than just 1 day seems to be working. It will take a week to be certain but I am optimistic that my clock is now being corrected once a day by Windows itself. And anytime I can have one less app running in the background, I'm a happy camper!
 
We have 2 computers with SPL here at our LPFM (one for the automation and one as hot standby). They had some pretty nasty clock drift, so I used the Windows registry tricks mentioned previously to change the time sync interval to every 4 hours and it works great at keeping the clocks on time. Our hour markers are "schedule next" so the start of each hour will float some, but we're usually pretty close.

Since those are "mission critical" they are kept off the public Internet. However, there's a Linux machine in house doing a couple useful things, and one is acting as a handy local time server to field all those time sync requests. All I had to do after setting up the NTP server on the Linux machine was to replace the time server name on the Windows machines with the Linux server's LAN IP.
 
@BobOnTheJob: I performed some testing using Windows XP Pro on a virtual machine running on a Mac so I could monitor the VM's outgoing connection using a program called Little Snitch. I severed the time synchronization between the Mac host and guest Windows operating system so the Mac didn't interfere with the time sync testing.

The method first outlined on this thread was implemented using a bat files called from the Task Scheduler. That method called the selected time server every time it was invoked.

The second method tested was using the registry change for the SpecialPollInterval registry value. This sometimes appeared to be hit-or-miss as the time that the control panel applet claimed would be the next connection attempt sometimes worked and sometimes not. This makes me wonder just how the Windows time service actually polls for updates.

I didn't have my Win7 media handy to install a Windows 7 Pro VM for testing but hope to soon. I hope this at least answers some of the question regarding how this works.
 
An IT guy suggested this small program, which will change the update from weekly to hourly (or daily).

Go to www.dougknox.com and locate the links on the left. Click on "Windows Vista/7/8" and then download "Change Internet Update Time Interval." Run the small .exe and then delete it if you wish.

Has anyone tried this program? Any reviews?
 
It was actually his site that I started with when working on automation systems for time tweaking. I haven't tried his 2.x version but I think Doug's program simply adjusts the SpecialPollInterval value.
 
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