Windows Timserver setup and for use with other apps.

I have windows 10 pro and when I bootup, or reinstall windows ten and setup the laptop, I setup the timezone and say synch to the current time.

I've always assumed that windows was synching to a timeserver somewhere or relied on the time I entered into the BIOS and is retained as long as the BIOS battery was good.

Now I have a commercial program on the laptop using a trial license. One of the things it requires and actually does is a diagnostic check on the Time server (NTP). There is a place in the configuration settings to specify the web address to the NTP time server.
I realize everyones timeserver syncs to the master atomic clock at the US Navy Observatory and others. It is not smart enough to retrieve the one from windows (or its registry) for use so I must enter it manually and retest.

Doing a google search windows 10 uses time.windows.com . Entering this into the app and rerunning the diagnostics still fails.
I've pinged time.windows.com and it pings. So I assume the port number is open what ever the port number is.

Moreover, doing more searching I came across
w32tm /query /configuration
w32tm /query /status
time /t

Doing time /t gives me the time; however, the w32tm command for /status says my windows 10 time server isn't setup.
The following error occurred: The service has not been started. (0x80070426)

So I'm not sure if this means that I don't have an "NTP server" running whereby w32tm is checking that, or if it can't check the time service at someones timeservice such as microsofts. Moreover, how can it get the time from msofts time server and ping it if it isn't configured and assuming it just doesn't get the time from the BIOS.?

In the meantime, I could just go to other timeservers sites: my ISP, google, US Navy Observatory etc. to get the eval software diagnostic to pass.....


Update=======
I then entered time.google.com and the commercial app still times out. So now I don't know what the IBM commercial app is expecting. Is the diagnostic just pinging the server site, or is it retrieving time....

Long story short, before everyone jumps in with their weird timeserver reset scripts and nonsense:

Try pool.ntp.org as your timeserver. It tends to work better than time.windows.com for some users, because there's weird network issues with ISP's beyond your control. And check if you're not running some 3rd-party firewall which blocks NTP traffic.

The following steps will configure windows to allow me to enter a time server address so that the IBM tool will pass their diagnostic test to check on a timeserver for the address entered.

The below commands were done at the command prompt as administrator.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /unregister
C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /register
C:\WINDOWS\system32>net start w32time
The Windows Time service is starting.
The Windows Time service was started successfully.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /query /configuration
[Configuration]

EventLogFlags: 2 (Local)
AnnounceFlags: 10 (Local)
TimeJumpAuditOffset: 28800 (Local)
MinPollInterval: 10 (Local)
MaxPollInterval: 15 (Local)
MaxNegPhaseCorrection: 54000 (Local)
MaxPosPhaseCorrection: 54000 (Local)
MaxAllowedPhaseOffset: 1 (Local)

FrequencyCorrectRate: 4 (Local)
PollAdjustFactor: 5 (Local)
LargePhaseOffset: 50000000 (Local)
SpikeWatchPeriod: 900 (Local)
LocalClockDispersion: 10 (Local)
HoldPeriod: 5 (Local)
PhaseCorrectRate: 1 (Local)
UpdateInterval: 360000 (Local)

[TimeProviders]

NtpClient (Local)
DllName: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\w32time.DLL (Local)
Enabled: 1 (Local)
InputProvider: 1 (Local)
AllowNonstandardModeCombinations: 1 (Local)
ResolvePeerBackoffMinutes: 15 (Local)
ResolvePeerBackoffMaxTimes: 7 (Local)
CompatibilityFlags: 2147483648 (Local)
EventLogFlags: 1 (Local)
LargeSampleSkew: 3 (Local)
SpecialPollInterval: 32768 (Local)
Type: NTP (Local)
NtpServer: time.windows.com,0x9 (Local)

NtpServer (Local)
DllName: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\w32time.DLL (Local)
Enabled: 0 (Local)
InputProvider: 0 (Local)
w32tm /query /status
Leap Indicator: 3(not synchronized)
Stratum: 0 (unspecified)
Precision: -23 (119.209ns per tick)
Root Delay: 0.0000000s
Root Dispersion: 0.0000000s
ReferenceId: 0x00000000 (unspecified)
Last Successful Sync Time: unspecified
Source: Local CMOS Clock
Poll Interval: 10 (1024s)


C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /config /update
The command completed successfully.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>w32tm /resync /rediscover
Sending resync command to local computer
The command completed successfully.


So now the IBM tool will pass its diagnostic when it checks to see if the time.windows.com NTP server was configured ok.

One of the things I'm not sure about is how to override time.windows.com with a different timeserver such as time.google.com? It looks to be set by defining it as a peer. Will need to find example command line to do this. Or if multiple timeservers can be specified so that if the network is down to microsoft, it can query the backup timeserver and any number of timeservers.

Here is the link on windows time server(s).
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...gs?tabs=config

To specify another timer server,
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"ntpserver.contoso.com clock.adatum.com" /syncfromflags:manual /update

Prioritize one time server over another,
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"ntpserver.contoso.com,0x8 clock.adatum.com,0x2" /syncfromflags:manual /update

The weblink also specifies that GPO default for timeserver can be used to specify the server.
Alot of useful info in weblink.

So after time service started
net start w32time

I did this to change to time.google.com
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"time.google.com clock.adatum.com" /syncfromflags:manual /update

and then checked the configuration
w32tm /query /configuration

[Configuration]

EventLogFlags: 2 (Local)
AnnounceFlags: 10 (Local)
TimeJumpAuditOffset: 28800 (Local)
MinPollInterval: 10 (Local)
MaxPollInterval: 15 (Local)
MaxNegPhaseCorrection: 54000 (Local)
MaxPosPhaseCorrection: 54000 (Local)
MaxAllowedPhaseOffset: 1 (Local)

FrequencyCorrectRate: 4 (Local)
PollAdjustFactor: 5 (Local)
LargePhaseOffset: 50000000 (Local)
SpikeWatchPeriod: 900 (Local)
LocalClockDispersion: 10 (Local)
HoldPeriod: 5 (Local)
PhaseCorrectRate: 1 (Local)
UpdateInterval: 360000 (Local)


[TimeProviders]

NtpClient (Local)
DllName: C:\WINDOWS\system32\w32time.dll (Local)
Enabled: 1 (Local)
InputProvider: 1 (Local)
AllowNonstandardModeCombinations: 1 (Local)
ResolvePeerBackoffMinutes: 15 (Local)
ResolvePeerBackoffMaxTimes: 7 (Local)
CompatibilityFlags: 2147483648 (Local)
EventLogFlags: 1 (Local)
LargeSampleSkew: 3 (Local)
SpecialPollInterval: 32768 (Local)
Type: NTP (Local)
NtpServer: time.google.com clock.adatum.com (Local)

NtpServer (Local)
DllName: C:\WINDOWS\system32\w32time.dll (Local)
Enabled: 0 (Local)
InputProvider: 0 (Local)