Windows 2000 Domain Timer Server Issue 1

[lefthooked]

Ever since the Time Change a few months back, our time has been "off". I ran the TZedit.exe tool on all machines and got the local time to sync up with Outlook just fine...after trial and error. I have recently rebooted my DC and users have started to come to me and state the there local machine time (XP Pro and Win2k) are off. Some by 1 hour behind and some 2 hours ahead. After doing some research on how A Timer Server "should" work on a Domain....I am about to call Ms for support. My DC shows the proper time. If I do a net time on the DC, correct. If I do a net time on a local machine, I get

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.


Current time at \\domain.xxxxx.LOCAL is 6/19/2007 5:08 PM

Local time (GMT-04:00) at \\domain.xxxxx.LOCAL is 6/19/2007 2:08 PM

The command completed successfully. Hence I'd assume the DC time is off. Not the case. I went thru and confirmed I have all the registry settings on my DC (Time Server) in place. If I shutdown any machine and bring it back up, it should look to sync the time with the Time Server. Well, the current time is 2:10pm, if I change it to 11:00am, reboot, it should resync with the time server. Negative. If I try to do a manual set net time /set \\xxxxx, the time is not the same as to on the Time Server....

Any suggestions?

 

[itsp1965]

Depending on how executed the TZEDIT tool fix method it may or may not work for you. It was designed to be used in Pre-Windows 2003/XP environments. If you have Windows 2003 servers and Windows XP hosts, you were best served to use the patches that were made available for these environments. In your case it sounds like you need to run the correct patch for your Windows XP clients.

 

[lefthooked]

Well my "real" concern is as to why both XP and 2k machines are not syncing from my DC. As if they did, all would be well <presuming the TimeZone's on the local are correct>. Any thoughts on that?

 

[lefthooked]

Edit: Domain is 2000. Just went to a few of the effected machines and they are already patched.

 

[itsp1965]

Check this to see if it helps

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842199

 

[lefthooked]

It was to my understanding that machines on a Domain do not have the Internet Tab on the time/date...

 

[lefthooked]

EDIT: As local clients dont look to the Internet for Time, but rather a Time Server on the Domain. If anything the Time Server would look out to the Internet for an External Source...hence what I'm trying to do via time.windows.com entry in my Timer Server 's Registry...

 

[Davetoo]

Are your time zones correct on your client machines? Do they have the "automatically adjust clock for DST" checked?

I don't think this is a time issue as much as it's a time zone issue.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[lefthooked]

Yes, the zones are correct and DST is checked. However, when the time changed last time all our times were out of wack. That was the reason for running the TZedit.exe as well as the patch. Everything was fine, rebooted my DC (252 days uptime) and everyone started having issues again. I am very curious as to why the clients are not syncing when signing onto the 2000 Domain.

 

[Davetoo]

They are syncing, but with the wrong TZ information.

Check that your server is patched correctly for the DST issues (tons of information available on the web so I'll not reiterate it all here).

If the clients are off by hours and not hours and minutes, then it's a time zone problem...solve that.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[kozmokramer]

I have a similar problem. I have two Win2k and 1 2003 domain controller. Systems get their time from the domain. I had to manually tell my Xp clients to NOT automatically adjust for Daylight Savings Time. I really do not know what is causing this.

If I disable the adjust for Daylight Savings Time the time is correct but any program that looks at zone info will stamp things wrong.

This is a pain in the ASS!

 

[lefthooked]

Yeah, 1/2 my LAN is correct 1/2 is not. All the clients have the patch applied and I have to go around using TZedit.exe to get it correct as well as try to make sure that Outlook is sync'd up as well. As the time might be correct, but if the user sendds them self a test email, the time will be off. Real pain to find a nice middle point to "trick" the system to tell the right time. Hence i'll be coming in tomorrow to go station to station.

 

[kozmokramer]

Did you ever find a middle ground to get your time set correctly? I am curious as I have been having the same kind of trouble and can't seems to find a pattern.

 

[lefthooked]

Not really, just had to goto each station and play it by ear.

 

[SuZu01]

Do you finally resoled your issues with thoses XP and 2k machines ?

I had a few machines here that did this problem and we are also on a 2000 Domain.

The problem was related to the fact that a few users had changed the time manually before the patch was applyed and after that we had a few problems with the time. I set back the time somes on thoses machines and set back the time.

I also set the time in my logon script from AD.

Let us known if you resoled your issues or not, I'll try do help you If I can since we had this issue with somes stations.

 

[kozmokramer]

Well I think I solved my similar problem that I was having with Network Time and I thought that I might share my solution

Config:
Two Win2K Domain Controllers and One Win2K3 Domain Controller. One of the Win2K servers is at the top of the time hierarchy.
Workstations are a mix of Xp Pro and Win2kPro...Mostly XP Pro

History:
Our Network started having time issues right after the change to DST on the second Sunday in March. At that moment time was set two hours ahead and none of the servers could agree on time. I was baffled as I had installed all necessary patches on the 2K3 and Xp machines and installed the TZ Edit Tool from Microsoft and manually changed the Win2K machines.

Problem and temp Solution:
As I said right after the switch to DST our time was bouncing all around and seemed to be different on just about every workstation and server. Some an hour ahead some an hour behind and some two hours ahead. To fix that I disabled the adjust for DST and set all time manually on servers. I also disabled DST adjust on all workstations. The correct time eventually propagated to all workstations and servers and I thought everything was fine.

Temp Fix Didn't work:
Later on I found that our time stamps for outgoing e-mail were an hour off and also time stamps on equity trades done in our investment trading system were stamped an hour off. I was also having issues with PDA synchronization to Outlook. My deduction was that these applications not only looked for correct time but a GMT offset that calculated the correct time, since the daylight savings box was not checked, most workstations stamped things as if they were in the Eastern Time Zone (GMT-5) , even though the time showed correct for Central. I also noticed that when I ran a "net time" command from a workstation that the time on \\server1 (my top tier server) was correct but it had an additional entry that said it was an hour off and was GMT-5 not GMT -6 as it should have been.

Final Fix.
On my two Win2k Servers I set the Time Zone info in the registry using Microsoft's TZEDIT tool. I also had to enable auto adjust for DST and set the correct time. I then had to apply it...change to a different time zone ...apply it and then set it back to the Central Time zone and make sure time was correct. I read a post in a forum that said there was a bug in the TZedit tool and it wouldn't work unless the timzone was changed to another zone and then changed back. Sure enough it worked that time. I also had to start and stop win32time service on all three domain controllers and make sure they were correct. I also had to enable the daylight savings adjust on all other workstations and servers. I then launched outlook for each user and fixed their calendar appointments as they were an hour off.

As of today time is still running synchronized so I hope that is that. We'll see come November when DST ends.

Hope this is of value.

Kozmo