Comments on: Dealing With Windows Vista Time Sync Problems

By: mjs3790225

mjs3790225 — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:26:02 +0000

I was having a sync problem too. With the help on here and a little experimenting, I was able to get it solved.

Running through the command prompt is infinitely more helpful than the GUI as it gives better error messages. Turns out, my clock was a day off and the sync thing decided that since it was so far off, it wouldn’t bother syncing. IDK, that sounds pretty dumb to me. At any rate, I set my time manually back onto the correct day in the GUI, then hit the update button. Worked fine after that.

What I did:

1. Ran clock update in command prompt (administrator mode or else you get an access denied error)
2. Read error message (something along the lines of it being to far off so the sync was aborted)
3. Headed to the GUI, fixed the time manually so it was closer.
4. Hit normal sync / update button
5. Enjoyed the success.
6. Wondered why that had to be so complicated =/

By: BC-Short

BC-Short — Sat, 30 May 2009 01:12:16 +0000

I have stopped the time service and then restarted. I can sync manually with multiple time servers. I even downloaded Atomic Clock Sync v 3.0. None of this helps. It seems like Vista keeps time OK until I shut down the machine. When I reboot later the time is all whacked.

Any and all help is appreciated.

By: Dave Short

Dave Short — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:03:17 +0000

Did you try (from a posting above)

Unknown

If the Change settings button on the Internet Time tabsheet does nothing, restart the Windows Time service:
net stop w32time
net start w32time

By: Dave Short

Dave Short — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:37:14 +0000

Thank you. I figured that out after I posted the above. My bad for not getting back here and letting folks know.

I am still having a problem with the clock syncing though. I can do a manual sync from Vista’s Internet clock tab. I’ve used several different time services, they all seem to work. However, when left alone, Vista can’t keep time worth a darn. It is way off. I synced manually yesterday evening. It is now 3:35 PM and my clock says 9:37 AM. This is pretty frustrating. I’ve even done the register hacks that shorten the automatic time interval. That only made it worse.

If you have a fix for this I sure would appreciate it. The clock used to work well until a few months ago.

Thanks for your help.

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:21:42 +0000

What do you do if your “Internet Time” tab is completely blank, except for a “Change settings…” button which does nothing when clicked?
I have Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium SP1 (the most up-to-date version as of 5/17/2009, according to Windows Update).

By: Vlad

Vlad — Sun, 17 May 2009 05:03:33 +0000

BC-Short, you should open a terminal with administrator priviledges.
Click on the start button, type in “cmd” without the quotes, it will appear above in the programs list, right click it and select “Run as administrator”. Afterwards you can run the command.

But it’s really the same thing with what the Vista clock/Internet time page does.

By: BC-Short

BC-Short — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:35:29 +0000

I did the W32TM /resync command. I got an “Access is denied” error message. I am able to manually sync from Vista’s clock/Internet time page.

What does the “Access is denied” message mean? What do I need to change to allow access?

Thanks for your help.

By: Vlad

Vlad — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:50:10 +0000

One short observation: When changing the registry value, be sure to select “Decimal” and only then enter the desired value in seconds !

By: Marty

Marty — Sat, 09 May 2009 23:44:05 +0000

Thanks for your input. Opening access to port 123 made all the difference for me. My computer’s clock is slow by about a half hour per year. Being able to update the time is a nice feature that I now have because of the input above. Thanks.

By: ChrisB

ChrisB — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:32:11 +0000

Iza,

You appear to have the same problem as I. Let me know if re-installing windows resolves it.