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I'm facing the following situation:

We have a computer with Windows 8 Standard Embedded. The machine is an industrial computer that doesn't have a CMOS Battery but a capacitor (a Gold Cap acting as a buffer to provide minimum 72h lifetime to the BIOS)

Every now and then we have long power cuts (let's say a week or two) and the system remains without power supply. It is so configured that when the power comes back, it boots automatically and starts working with no human intervention.

And here comes the problem. Windows is set to automatically synchronize Date and Time every 10min, but the time difference is too great (because of the long power cut and the short lifetime of the capacitor) and it has to be manually updated.

Is there a way to avoid the manually update and force Windows to somehow update the Date and Time?

I've already tried with a batch script on startup (w32tm /resync) but doesn't do the trick.

Thank you

TL;DR Windows can't synchronize automatically (with a ntp server) the Date and Time when the time difference is too great. Does someone have an idea to avoid the manually update?

weilah
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1 Answers1

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The problem you're having is that the network connection is most likely not yet set up when the sync is triggered.

You should set up a scheduled task that runs at start-up, that waits until a network connection has been established.
If this doesn't work, there are some older solutions to this problem, I can vouch for the top answer in that link as the batch file helped me on a Windows 2000 Server.

Edit:
After-thought and possible second cause for your issue.
Did you set the MaxPosPhaseCorrection?
It is possible you will have to set this to 0xFFFFFFFF.

Community
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Reaces
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  • Thanks for helping. I'm going to check this out and report back. But I can tell right now that the network connection has nothing to do with it, because if I manually trigger the script, when everything is up and running (and keeping the time difference), I get the same result. Windows reports an error saying that the time difference is too great and that it must be manually updated. Once I click the "sync now" button (instead of running the script), it syncs normally. – weilah Jan 21 '15 at 08:39
  • @weilah Then you should check out the link in my edit. It allows you to bypass "time difference too great". – Reaces Jan 21 '15 at 08:43
  • I think you are totally right! let me finish some tests and I will then accept your answer. – weilah Jan 21 '15 at 09:21
  • `MaxPosPhaseCorrection` is set to `0xFFFFFFFF` on my W10 system, and I also get the "time difference is too great" message. – RonJohn Jun 19 '23 at 13:32