Windows 10: Synchronize Clock with an Internet Time Server in Windows 10

With me the Windows time is about 2-3 minutes off.

I did try to resync
Control Panel\Clock, Language and Region->Tab Internet Time change settings
using both time.windows.com and time.nist.gov
no change

then w32tm /resync
then set services.msc windows time->automatic

still no change.

didn't go thru the steps of Joanne: would not know where to find this 'SpecialPollInterval'-thing.

discovered this 'wrong windows time' as I normally set all clocks and my wristwatch to Windows.
Updated all times when changing from Feb. 29 to march 01 and started missing the news on the radio and tv.

Will not be using Windows time anymore.


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Hello tfwul, *Smile

Are you getting a successful sync using OPTION ONE?

You last screenshot from using OPTION TWO show that is was not able to sync with the time server.

If you're not getting successful syncs in a row, then you may need to keep trying different time servers until you find a more reliable one.

Here's the tutorial below for SpecialPollInterval that's for how to increase the update interval for Internet time synchronization to have it check and sync more often.

Internet Time Synchronization Update Interval

 

Hello Brink,

I tried option 1: that is the option with the timeservers, right?

got some error
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Have updated the registry setting (SpecialPollInterval) to 86400

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I need to wait until tomorrow before I know it will work.

Meanwhile my Internet Security Suite seems to be malfunctioning, the license key cannot be applied.
The support pages provide a few causes and one of them is

--
Incorrect system date & time: Please check the date & time on your computer. If this information is incorrect, please correct it and then try inserting the license again.
--

Wonder whether this 2,5 minutes 'wrong' could be the cause.

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p.s. later . . .

somewhere I read about disabling the firewall, which I did on a temporary basis
the time is okay now.
will need to check if indeed it is a firewall thing.
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tfwul,

Double check to make sure that the firewall is not set to block the NPT access on UDP port 123, and allow Internet Time Server.

 

Ah! Many thanks. Port 123 seems to be have been blocked.
What do you think of port 13? Somewhere I read about 'daytime protocol'?

 

That's correct. Port 13 is for "Daytime Protocol". *Smile

Daytime Protocol - Wikipedia

 

Hi Brink,
Many thanks, matter is solved!
best regards
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One area where a few seconds matters a lot is in some Ham Radio digital operations like JT65HF. The clock should be within milliseconds. This can be done with free software. I used Dimension 4 (D4).

 

Shawn, thank you for your advice about the Win 10 time fix. The Control Panel advice worked. The other suggestions like going to properties of Windows Time acomplished nothing but the CP did. I should have known. Control Panel, in my opinion is much better than Settings

 

I'm glad it could help jss3rd, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

 

Hi folks, new member here. Useful post, many thanks. Just thought I'd leave some thoughts, some of which Brink, as a MVP might feel like passing on to MS.
I don't change machines very often, but two years ago I acquired a new machine running w8 which I immediately updated to 8.1. I upgraded to 10 in Feb. 2016. My old machine which I still have ran XP and never seemed to have any problems synchronising time. So with the new machine I didn't even think about it (and therefore had pure default config) until I'd had it about 4 months when I discovered it was a good minute fast. Surprised, I started to investigate and discovered a lot of debate about the problem. Settings seemed to be all right so I just did a manual sync through the Internet time tab in CP and forgot about it.
8 months later I again discovered the machine was over a minute fast, so had a closer look. Discovered the time service was not set to launch automatically (why not, Microsoft??), so did that. But even so, after much messing around with reg values, including specialpollinterval, the machine is still not doing the job properly.
What I find particularly annoying is that Windows' messages do not reflect the reality. If I open the CP Internet time dialogue it gaily says "The clock was synchronized on ..." date and time, whereas I know that it wasn't. From what I've seen in discussions, this message may just mean that it tried. Well that's a lot of use! Another example : This morning I used the command line to synchronise manually, and got the reply, "The computer did not resync because no time data was available", whereas in fact it did resync. The machine had again been over a minute fast and is now at the correct time.
So I'm going for the following option : use Task scheduler to launch a little cmd which will

• record current system time;
• do a resync and
• again record current system time,

all to a little log file where I can easily keep an eye on it.
One other remark : it seems to me silly to have all the Windows machines in the world going by default to time.windows.com. NTP is naturally susceptible to the quality of the connection. Since we know the user's country, why not use a time server in that country? [Edit : I know you get redirected to some other more local source but the redirection is haphazard and far more complicated than just going straight to a local time server.]

 

I use Dimension 4 and select a server near you. It is free software Thinking Man Software - Dimension 4 v5.3
It keeps the clock correct to millisecond accuracy. Why would I care? Because in some Ham Radio Digital modes it MUST be accurate and the builtin MS time service is NOT!!

 

Thanks MPSAN for the tip but I don't need anything sophisticated at the moment.

I scheduled a little cmd to run once a week. It ran this morning successfully. Here's the log result (system response is in French)
----------------------------------------------
Current time: 30/07/2016 11:52:40,03
Envoi de la commande de resynchronisation … l'ordinateur local
La commande s'est terminée correctement.
Current time: 30/07/2016 11:52:26,35
----------------------------------------------
So the machine had gained 14" since last week (about the same as my oven!!) but is now back on track.
Jo

 

OK, glad it was resolved for you.

 

Code: C:\users\Administrator> w32tm /resync The following error occurred: The service has not been started. (0x80070426) net start w32time The Windows Time service is starting. The Windows Time service was started successfully w32tm /resync Sending resync command to local computer The command completed successfully.[/quote] this does work (need to execute net start w32time)