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Apple and Penguin time

Since Version 8.5 the Apple Mac OS has included an NTP client, integrated in the Date and Time control field. You enter the desired time server and select the query interval with a simple click of the mouse. Of course, everything changed with MacOS X: Apple's Unix system comes with an adapted version of the NTP package.

Mac

ntpd, which is constantly running in the background. This does not get its settings from the usual configuration files; it gets them from the NetInfo database instead. Any changes here require you to reboot the server process and are not compatible with the user interface in the system settings, where you can stipulate the server to be queried. In Linux you can either use ntpdate, which is part of the NTP package, or ntpd itself to set the time.

Windows on-board tools

Microsoft's Windows XP can automatically adjust its clock. In a LAN with a domain controller, it will access the controller's time, but this is only reliable if the admin regularly maintains it or has set up an NTP server on it. The latter is also available for Windows servers including a graphical configuration and monitoring tool.

Another alternative for XP is to activate synchronisation in Properties of date and time on the Internet time tab. Of course, since it is Windows, the default server is a Microsoft server, and the operating system only syncs with the indicated time server once a week. For some users, this could lead to intolerable deviations of several seconds.

You can easily select another server, but only Windows XP Pro, Vista Business and Vista Ultimate allow you to change the interval or the query type (NT5DS, NTP), which is done through the group edit settings – gpedit.msc. You can find the parameters under Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Windows Time Service → Time Providers.

If you run XP Home and you do not want to use a separate client, you have numerous options to activate the NTP time synchronisation. The easiest way is through the Registry. Add the W32time key to Parameters as the subkey under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft. You then have to insert the value Type (as REG_SZ) under the Parameters key and then enter NTP. Afterwards, you can enter the name of an NTP server in the Time Settings dialog, and XP Home will sync the time from this server. As far as we know, the query interval is 15 minutes and cannot be changed.

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