Windows Server Time Randomly Changing

[ICT-Joe]

Good Morning,

 

We have been having an issue recently on one of our virtual DCs (Windows Server 2019) – since installing the latest Windows Updates, the time keeps reverting to a random year and time. When this happens, the machine freezes and I have to hard reboot it in VMware. After a hard reboot, I usually check the BIOS time, which is wrong and has to be manually set, which can stay up anywhere between 10 minutes to a week, and then the issue reoccurs. The DC looks to use a couple of time servers and not the host it is sat but I checked the host just in case and the time is set correctly. Is there an easy way to determine what time is throwing out the other (so, whether the server time throws off the BIOS or the other way around). I think I need to remove the updates as well but just wanted some advice with the time issue as well. New to VMware so any help greatly appreciated!

 

With thanks

ICT-Joe

[howartp]

We have our VMware hosts and the windows guests all set to the same NTP source, which is our Smoothwall UTM. That in turn looks out to the internet to "Multiple random public servers".

 

This ensures everything in-school gets same time, even if (worst case scenario) that time happens to be wrong time.

[ICT-Joe]

Thank you howartp - I will add that to my tasks to looks at! At the moment, our hosts use a set time rather than a time server. The DC in question uses a few time servers and the subsequent servers use that DC time, which is how I think everything gets thrown out after that!

[timbo343]

Good Morning,

 

We have been having an issue recently on one of our virtual DCs (Windows Server 2019) – since installing the latest Windows Updates, the time keeps reverting to a random year and time. When this happens, the machine freezes and I have to hard reboot it in VMware. After a hard reboot, I usually check the BIOS time, which is wrong and has to be manually set, which can stay up anywhere between 10 minutes to a week, and then the issue reoccurs. The DC looks to use a couple of time servers and not the host it is sat but I checked the host just in case and the time is set correctly. Is there an easy way to determine what time is throwing out the other (so, whether the server time throws off the BIOS or the other way around). I think I need to remove the updates as well but just wanted some advice with the time issue as well. New to VMware so any help greatly appreciated!

 

With thanks

ICT-Joe

Install an application called NetTime. It's a GUI that you can configure to use any time server.