ewelin
May 14, 2009, 06:16 PM
As many of you know a Home Automation Schedule will only work if your PC's clock is correct. Sure windows and HCA both have features to update the system clock automatically but I've found another solution that is extremely versatile. The downside to Windows built in Internet Time Synchronization is it only occurs once a week. Since PC which has HCA installed is usually on 24/7 this update frequency is inadiquit because all PCs lose time after they've been on for a while. Also Windows built in feature has a limited selection of time servers which you can sync to. You're basically stuck with time.nist.gov and time.windows.com
HCA help improved this process by allowing one to configure Automatic Clock Correction which updates the time once a day. Sure this is great but it still only updates the PC HCA is installed on and it also limited to the 3 options, two of which require a phone call via a modem and the other is by using the NIST Internet Time Service (ITS) (http://tf.nist.gov/service/its.htm) program which is a good program but you can not configure which timeserver you connect to and you can still only update it once a day.
I've personally found a nifty program called Dimension 4 (D4) (http://thinkman.com/dimension4/index.htm) that is great for synchornizing your PCs clock. It's highly configurable in that you can choose which time server it should sync with. There is an extensive list included and you can also input your own settings if you wish. You can also specify the interval for updates, timeout for errors, and how frequently to retry after an error. On top of that you can also set a maximum correction time so that large mistakes doesn't happen. You can also install it as a service in Windows 2000, NT, XP, 2003, and Home Server, but the best feature of all it you can install D4 on one PC and then make it act as a time server of its own for D4 running on other machines. Note I did have a hard time getting D4 to run properly on Windows Vista.
User d_sellers1 shared this alternative solution:
Here's an even easier way that does not need any additional software and will take longer to read this post than it will to actually set up. Like ewelin pointed out, Windows only updates its time every week. So why not just change that? These instructions work for Windows XP and Vista (2000 was a little more complicated and I can't remember exactly how I did it before). These instructions involved editing the Windows Registry. If you don't know what you're doing in there, then I highly recommend following my steps to the letter and not messing with anything else.
Start Regedit by typing REGEDIT in the text box on the START menu in Vista (XP: Start > Run > REGEDIT) and press Enter.
Click EDIT > FIND and search for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\W 32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient
Double-click on SpecialPollInterval
In Vista, click the bubble next to Decimal. (XP: If I remember correctly, you'll simply use the decimal box.)
This number reflects the time in seconds between updating. The default is 604800 which is one week in seconds. If you want Windows to update every hour, change this number to 3600 (60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour = 3600 seconds per hour). For every 24 hours, use 86400.
Click OK
Close Regedit
These settings are effective immediately and you do not have to restart Windows. I would recommend forcing Windows to update to "kick-start" the new duration. In Vista, left click on the time in the System Tray (bottom right where the icons are) and then click Change Date and Time Settings... Click the Internet Time tab and then Change Settings button. In the next window, click the Update Now button followed by OK. You'll notice the next synchronization is now an hour away (or whatever duration you choose).
To make things a little easier, copy and paste this code in to Notepad and save as "time_update.reg" and then just double click on the file to modify the registry. (Note: must be saved as a .reg and not as a .txt in order to work right; that's what the quotation marks are for when saving.) This will change the update frequency to once an hour.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\W 32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient]
"SpecialPollInterval"=dword:00000e10
Now you can be comfortable that HCA will always be on time or if something drastic where to happen the time would be updated correctly within time you configured.
HCA help improved this process by allowing one to configure Automatic Clock Correction which updates the time once a day. Sure this is great but it still only updates the PC HCA is installed on and it also limited to the 3 options, two of which require a phone call via a modem and the other is by using the NIST Internet Time Service (ITS) (http://tf.nist.gov/service/its.htm) program which is a good program but you can not configure which timeserver you connect to and you can still only update it once a day.
I've personally found a nifty program called Dimension 4 (D4) (http://thinkman.com/dimension4/index.htm) that is great for synchornizing your PCs clock. It's highly configurable in that you can choose which time server it should sync with. There is an extensive list included and you can also input your own settings if you wish. You can also specify the interval for updates, timeout for errors, and how frequently to retry after an error. On top of that you can also set a maximum correction time so that large mistakes doesn't happen. You can also install it as a service in Windows 2000, NT, XP, 2003, and Home Server, but the best feature of all it you can install D4 on one PC and then make it act as a time server of its own for D4 running on other machines. Note I did have a hard time getting D4 to run properly on Windows Vista.
User d_sellers1 shared this alternative solution:
Here's an even easier way that does not need any additional software and will take longer to read this post than it will to actually set up. Like ewelin pointed out, Windows only updates its time every week. So why not just change that? These instructions work for Windows XP and Vista (2000 was a little more complicated and I can't remember exactly how I did it before). These instructions involved editing the Windows Registry. If you don't know what you're doing in there, then I highly recommend following my steps to the letter and not messing with anything else.
Start Regedit by typing REGEDIT in the text box on the START menu in Vista (XP: Start > Run > REGEDIT) and press Enter.
Click EDIT > FIND and search for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\W 32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient
Double-click on SpecialPollInterval
In Vista, click the bubble next to Decimal. (XP: If I remember correctly, you'll simply use the decimal box.)
This number reflects the time in seconds between updating. The default is 604800 which is one week in seconds. If you want Windows to update every hour, change this number to 3600 (60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour = 3600 seconds per hour). For every 24 hours, use 86400.
Click OK
Close Regedit
These settings are effective immediately and you do not have to restart Windows. I would recommend forcing Windows to update to "kick-start" the new duration. In Vista, left click on the time in the System Tray (bottom right where the icons are) and then click Change Date and Time Settings... Click the Internet Time tab and then Change Settings button. In the next window, click the Update Now button followed by OK. You'll notice the next synchronization is now an hour away (or whatever duration you choose).
To make things a little easier, copy and paste this code in to Notepad and save as "time_update.reg" and then just double click on the file to modify the registry. (Note: must be saved as a .reg and not as a .txt in order to work right; that's what the quotation marks are for when saving.) This will change the update frequency to once an hour.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\W 32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient]
"SpecialPollInterval"=dword:00000e10
Now you can be comfortable that HCA will always be on time or if something drastic where to happen the time would be updated correctly within time you configured.