Windows Time Is Not Syncing Automatically

Dru2 said:

you might check that the time / date in the BIOS is correct. And/or you might also need to replace the CMOS (BIOS) battery.

Click to expand...

Dru2 is spot on. I've seen the cmos battery cause this more than once.

Stigg said:

It seems like a long shot to me, but I've enabled fast startup in a last ditch effort to try and sort this bug out.

Click to expand...

You can only try it. My old Dell Vostro laptop from 2012 (running W11 just fine) and my new Dell Precision have both shown this behaviour.

I had a problem using a banking site this week. A nag screen was shown giving me 10 seconds to login after which I was dropped back to the top level login page. The problem was my Windows 11 time was out by several minutes. All was OK when I synced the time manually. The BIOS time is fine and the CMOS battery is new since this is a new build PC. The problem is Windows 11 has a bug synchronising time.

glasskuter said:

Dru2 is spot on. I've seen the cmos battery cause this more than once.

Click to expand...

The thing is, my laptop is only losing small amounts of time over a few days, as it has done from new. And besides that, as far as I know, my laptop doesn't have a removable CMOS battery. Apparently, newer ones don't. I've had mine apart a few times and never saw one.

Computers aren't renowned as being the best time keepers. It usually goes unnoticed if your time is automatically syncing. Even on desktops, I have found many motherboards (especially ASUS) to be poor time keepers.

I can manually sync the time by pressing the "Sync Now" button, so it's can't be a time server issue.

Steve C said:

The problem is Windows 11 has a bug synchronising time.

Click to expand...

That appears to be the case, Steve, but it doesn't seem like it affects all computers.
It actually does synchronise using the "Sync Now" button. It just refuses to do it automatically.

Using the pool.ntp servers all my laptops synchronise at boot

barreleye said:

I've been using the "Actually Synchronize Time" scheduled task described below since 2011, including in Windows 11:

Make Windows synchronize time more often

www.pretentiousname.com

Click to expand...

I've tried everything to fix this issue in Windows 11, so I'm going to admit defeat and use this workaround.

A couple of questions. W32tm.exe is available in C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64. Would it matter whether I used the 32-bit or 64-bit version? If unknown, I might test it myself.

The other question is. Did you change the "Configure For" task setting?



Edit: I changed the "Configure For" to Windows 10. It's the latest Windows operating system available in my Task Scheduler.
I left the rest of the instructions the same. I ran the task manually to test it, and it seemed to work.

I have it running once per day for now. That should be enough.

I don't know what happened here, or if it was a problem with the bios update, I don't know, but some time ago I noticed this, the time didn't sync and I found this application, it solved my problem.
Time Sync

Time-Sync is a freeware software to synchronize the time of your system. The features of the software are:

• Simple self-explanatory software
• Configuration in a few steps
• Runs as a windows service in the background without any tray-icons
• Server & Client version according to RFC standards
• Usable in LAN and/or in Internet
• Uses system resources economically
• Redundant time servers are available
• Quick and clean install/uninstall

The special feature about this software is its simplicity. Time-Sync is installed as a service, the configuration is very easy for each user and can be done in a few steps. Up to five redundant time servers can be configured, that means if a time server is not available the next one will be used automatically.

If you wish Time-Sync can configure your Windows-Firewall during the setup. Due to that you can use all functions of Time-Sync immediately. Addionally Time-Sync supports the so-called "command-line" installation that lets you install or update the software via command-line.

Stigg said:

I've tried everything to fix this issue in Windows 11, so I'm going to admit defeat and use this workaround.

A couple of questions. W32tm.exe is available in C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64. Would it matter whether I used the 32-bit or 64-bit version? If unknown, I might test it myself.

The other question is. Did you change the "Configure For" task setting?

Click to expand...

I've always used the task exactly as described in the article, so %windir%\system32\w32tm.exe.

It's configured for "Windows 10" on my Windows 11 main machine and Windows 10 file server. Don't know if it matters or not, and I don't remember ever setting it. I exported the current settings, then changed it to Windows 7 and exported a new file, but nothing showed up when I WinDiff'd the two files. I don't see that "Configure For" is saved anywhere in the exported XML files.

barreleye said:

I've always used the task exactly as described in the article, so %windir%\system32\w32tm.exe.

It's configured for "Windows 10" on my Windows 11 main machine and Windows 10 file server. Don't know if it matters or not, and I don't remember ever setting it. I exported the current settings, then changed it to Windows 7 and exported a new file, but nothing showed up when I WinDiff'd the two files. I don't see that "Configure For" is saved anywhere in the exported XML files.

Click to expand...

I know when I've created scheduled tasks for backup scripts, the "Configured For" setting provided different functionalities regardless of the operating system it is running on. But for a simple task like this, it may not matter which "Configured For" operating system is selected. The Windows 10 selection seems to be working. I'll keep an eye on it.

Stigg said:

I know when I've created scheduled tasks for backup scripts, the "Configured For" setting provided different functionalities regardless of the operating system it is running on. But for a simple task like this, it may not matter which "Configured For" operating system is selected. The Windows 10 selection seems to be working. I'll keep an eye on it.

Click to expand...

Can you find it in the exported XML file? If not, I wonder where it's saved.

barreleye said:

Can you find it in the exported XML file? If not, I wonder where it's saved.

Click to expand...

I've exported the task for future use, but I can't find Windows 10 or any reference to a Windows operating system in the XML.
Maybe the "Configured For" setting is not saved. I'd have to import it back in to know if it is or not.

It's done its first automatic time sync, and it works well.

barreleye said:

I've been using the "Actually Synchronize Time" scheduled task described below since 2011, including in Windows 11:

Make Windows synchronize time more often

www.pretentiousname.com

Click to expand...

That has been working perfectly since I created the task.