Sync Your Clock With Internet Time Servers from the Vista Command Prompt
If you have an issue with your system clock losing time, you’ve probably had to go and re-sync your clock with the internet time servers. The problem is that there are just way too many clicks required to get to the right screen, so the command line is much simpler.
Note that you can partially solve this issue by changing the time server you are using or increasing the intervals between time checks, but there are some instances where you’ll just want to quickly sync the time manually.
Sync Clock the Slow GUI Way
First you’ll have to right-click on the clock and choose “Adjust Date/Time”
Then you select the Internet Time tab, and click the Change Settings button…
After the UAC prompt you can finally click the “Update now” button to tell the computer to resync.
That’s a lot of steps… but check out how simple it is from the command line.
Sync Clock from Command Line
Simply open an administrative mode command prompt (right-click, Run as administrator), and then type in the following command:
w32tm /resync
And now your clock is sync’d. If you want proof, you could check the time settings panel again.
Now that just seems easier to me.
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The command prompt option also works with Windows XP Professional.
nice tip! Thanks!
Thanks, this has saved me a lot of time…………..;)
Montana
I get: “The following error occurred:Access is denied. (0×80070005). any ideas?
@teknikel
You need to be using an administrative mode command prompt.
Yes, the cli is easier, but unless you have a cesium clock in your PC, you’ll have to do it again, and again as your clock skews. The GUI will keep your PC uptotime
@Scott
You can put the command in a batch file and schedule it to run as often as you want.
@Mick & Scott
Windows automatically syncs your computer once a week if you have that option turned on. If that’s not often enough, you can adjust the interval: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....-problems/
This command line option is most useful for when you need the clock to sync right now. For instance, I have a source control application I use at work that complains if my clock is more than a few seconds off.
If your computer is on a domain then you don’t get that option. I think domain computer’s sync with the PDC so does anyone have any tips on how to setup time server syncing for the PDC?
To keep my computer’s time current, I use a utility called Dimension 4 from Thinking Man Software ( http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/ ). It is much more flexible than Windows’ built-in Internet Time feature. As an added bonus, you can configure Dimension 4 to be an in-house time server (i.e., one computer [maybe the PDC] syncs with an Internet time server, and your internal computers sync with the Dimension 4 server). I’ve used this program for years, and I highly recommend it.
What to do if the 3rd tab “Internet Time” is missing?
Is there anything to be done to “install” it?
Thanks. For some reason even this command doesn’t sync with the internet time. Oh well, I’ll do it manually.
the command line way does fix the error for synchronizing and if it asks you for administrator rights, close the command prompt and open it by right clicking on the command prompt icon in accessories and then click on run as administrator and then try the time sync command again and it should work.
Mine says
the computer did not recognise the resync because the required time was too big….
any help?
great idea, but what happens if you get “The following error occurred: Access is denied.
and running in admin mode I get “The computer did not resync because no time data was available”
I get the same as John, “The computer did not resync because no time data was available”
If i go to Adjust date and time on my windows vista. then there is no internet time tab at all.
so i can i sync my vista laptop with a internet time server ?
In vista you can also setup your client time server using gpedit.msc – Administrative templates – system – Windows Time Service – Time Providers. You have the option to manually set the time provider like pool.ntp.org which seems to work the best, and even set the vista machine as a NTP provider for the rest of the network. Use C:\gpupdate /force after you make changes and test it out.
Thank you!
This helped me alot, I’m gonna create a batch file and schedule it to run every five minutes.
Anyone have any idea why the phenomena of losing time happens in the first place?
I tried all suggestion given here and it seems like it does work…until i reboot my DELL inspiron 1525 laptop and the same problem will occur again and again. Does this problem has something got to do with game? FYI, I installed ONLY Football Manager 2008 weeks ago. But i only stucked in this problem few days ago (march 24, 2009).
can anybody help?
thank you.
nice one
i have the problem of ‘access denied’ when i try the internet time synchronisation. and i think because of the i cannot log in on my msn live messenger!
please help me solve the problem. i tried running the command prompt as an administrator (and anyway no one else uses my pc so i log in as an administrator anyway). it just says access denied. last nite it did not say ‘access denied’ it just said ‘an error occurred during synchronisation’ and i could log in on msn. but when it says ‘access denied’ i cant
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have the same problem like the one faced by Nadia too and several other..
1) I always run my pc as an administrator.. but the command prompt said that my access is denied.
2) I try to synchronize with internet time server.. and i tried several server such as time.windows.com, time.nist.gov, time-nw.nist.gov etc.. but all failed to synchronize. “An error occurred while windows was synchronising with …. ”
3) How do I “manually set the time provider like pool.ntp.org which seems to work the best, and even set the vista machine as a NTP provider for the rest of the network.’
4) I need to reset my system clock manual every times I restart my laptop as it will be set to 1.1.2005 everytime.. what is the problem??
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 =/