Server 2008 - Windows XP Time Sync...

[Paullys50]

Here is my setup, I have a SCADA Server running Windows Server 2008 which running my Wonderware InTouch DAS server. I have multiple Windows XP clients (InTouch application setup for NAD) referencing this IO server for tag data. I am looking to synchronize the time between the Server and Clients so when I look at data trends, everything is in sync. Server would be the master time keeper and the clients would be children referencing the server.

I have not configured a time sync like this, it seems like it should be easy but this system is "Live" so if it requires and server reboots to implement, I need to plan accordingly.

Currently at site, will do a better job of searching the forum later today to see if this has been covered else ware.

Thanks!

 

[Ken Roach]

Do the XP client computers authenticate against the Windows 2008 Server as a Domain Controller ?

If so, the time gets automatically synchronized.

If not, it takes a lot more work to configure the Server as an NTP server, make sure it can get an accurate time (like from the NIST servers over the Internet), and configure the XP computers to use the Server 2008 computer as their time source.

I had to do this a couple of years ago with a Windows 2003 Server as the time source, and XP SP2 as the clients. It was quite a pain; virtually all the reference information you can find refers back to the default Domain method that makes everything automatic. There were registry changes and reboots and patches for the XP boxes (to catch up with the DST changes).

 

[Paullys50]

Ken -

Sorry about that important detail domain/work group...it's the later just a work group.

I found some info on setting this up manually, but it was referencing registry tweaks/changes which has gotten me nervous. It is not critical, just an annoyance.

 

[Johnster]

Check this out:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/w32time/archive/2009/08/07/net-time-and-w32time.aspx

not sure if its exactly what you are looking for, but my integrator put this on a small workgroup of winXP (only) machines and it seems to work ok- they put the NET TIME command into a batch file, and task schedulered it to run every night at 1am (or so). You might need to (re?)-learn from batch file programming, but it syncs the time and is very 'slim'.

-John

 

[Paullys50]

Check this out:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/w32time/archive/2009/08/07/net-time-and-w32time.aspx

not sure if its exactly what you are looking for, but my integrator put this on a small workgroup of winXP (only) machines and it seems to work ok- they put the NET TIME command into a batch file, and task schedulered it to run every night at 1am (or so). You might need to (re?)-learn from batch file programming, but it syncs the time and is very 'slim'.

-John

John -

That looks like it would handle what I am looking to do! I'll be looking deeper into this solution. Thanks again!

 

[Johnster]

Paul...
If you want, I can go look up the batch file and string that we use. Hit me up in this thread or by PM

-John G.

 

[Paullys50]

Paul...
If you want, I can go look up the batch file and string that we use. Hit me up in this thread or by PM

-John G.

No need, just made one up and tested. Works great! Thanks again!