Time Synchronization with AD

I had weird issue with Active Directory service where there were no Windows Time service at all. w32time.dll and w32tm.exe files were in place. So I just registered w32time.dll by:

w32tm /register

After that Windows Time service appeared under ‘services’. Start service by:

net start w32time

Then to check that time service work on DC run from any client:

w32tm /stripchart /computer:dc_ip /samples:5 /dataonly

To synchronize with DC right away on client run:

w32tm /resync

In case client synchronizes with outside NTP instead of DC edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ W32Time\ Parameters. If it has ‘NTP’ in ‘Type’ parameter then change it to ‘NT5DS’ and run:

w32tm /config /update

 

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PDC Time Sycnhronization

I turns out that quote: “By default, the primary domain controller (PDC) emulator gets its time from the BIOS clock”. It means you will loose connection from AD clients to PDC when you will have large time skew (more than 1 hour if I remember correctly). To configure w32tm service do the following:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:time.windows.com /syncfromflags:MANUAL

w32tm /config /update