Computer on Windows Domain not accepting daylight savings time

Question

my computer is on a domain with about 30 other computers and mine is the only one that hasnt rolled forward to daylight savings time. i have rebooted and all that.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Its a Windows XP machine.

Answer 1

OK, as ChrisF pointed out in the comments, half of the world (the southern half) is approaching summer, so let me apologize for the northern-hemisphere-centric focus of my original post. It's been a few decades since I was south of the equator; I'll blame my northern bias on that. :)

The point I was trying to get across is that there are differing rules for when DST is applied or removed. There's the official rule, defined by your local government, and that changes once in a while. Then there's the rule that Windows computers follow, which is hopefully a programming representation of the official rule, and which is typically rolled out by Windows Updates.

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In general, if your area has already made the switch (whether to or from DST), and your computer doesn't match everyone else's, there are a couple of reasons this could be happening. We have two sets of computers (yours, and all the rest); one set is right, one is wrong. Why?

1. One set of computers isn't running the Windows Time service,

2. One set of computers hasn't applied the latest DST update, or

3. One set is getting its time from a different server (which is giving the wrong time).

Assuming the solitary computer is the wrong one, you should

• a) make sure the Windows Time service is running,
• a) check for any Windows Updates you haven't applied, and
• b) verify that your NTP settings are the same as the other computers

If that doesn't fix it, please update the question with what you've done so far. We will need to look deeper at how Windows sets its time, particularly in a Domain setting, and tools to help troubleshoot.

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Useful:

W32Time is the Windows Time service that provides Windows computers with timekeeping as well as their timezone and DST smarts. The w32tm and net time commands will be helpful; read the link for gory details.

On a Domain, Group Policy comes into play, so problems might actually be with the local Windows Time Service Group Policy.

Remember: Time is complicated. Windows Time doubly so.

Answer 2

I know it's obvious, but have you checked that the option to automatically adjust the clock is enabled?

It's on the Time Zone tab of the Date and Time properties dialog.

Another obvious thing to check is that the year on the problem computer is correct. If the start of daylight saving has changed recently and the computer is set to 2007 (for example) it might not be daylight saving yet.

Is there a process running on the affected machine (like Atomic Clock Sync) that's overriding the time?

The key is to look for differences between the machines that work and the one that doesn't.