Windows Time Service

[Chuckster]

How do you swap the time service from a Windows 2003 over to 2008 R2, and have all your workstations and other servers synchronize with the new one?

[srochford]

It should "just work" - the Windows clients will expect to get their time from a DC so if the 2008 R2 box is a DC then it will be a time source.

[Chuckster]

I was checking the Event Logs and it was saying the 2008 R2 server was trying to sync with what was the PDC but still is a DC, nonetheless. Is this normal?

[danrhodes]

If it doesn't work then you can add this to your startup script.

 

NET TIME \\TIMESRVNAME /SET /YES

 

D

[Chuckster]

Nice one. I'll give that a try and see what happens.

[DMcCoy]

The DC with the PDC role will be used by the other DCs as the primary time source. As long as it is synchronised with an external source the other DCs can be used by the clients as an authoritative time source.

 

The best way to sync the clients is to use the group policy options for the windows time service, that what it's there for! No need for scripts, and it will run sntp rather than be a single time correction.