I recently ran across a spate of the dreaded errors in the event log saying that my time synchronization wasn’t happening. What a nuisance. Luckily, I found my way to a page that tells you how to fix time synchronization issues. It’s geared towards Small Business Server, but it works on Windows 2003 Server as well.
In a nutshell:
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:time.nist.gov,0x8 /syncfromflags:MANUAL net stop w32time net start w32time w32tm /resync
And you’re set. The first option is the true magic – this sets the server in “client mode” (that’s done with the 0x8 in there) and points it to time.nist.gov. Then you stop the service, start it again and resync the service, and you’re off and running. Sweet!
Update: For Windows 2000, use this instead:
net time /setsntp:time.nist.gov net stop w32time net start w32time