Re: DST change and home auto...

[Lewis Gardner <lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> All the computers including the HA server synchronized automagically
> over our home's local network thanks to MS W32Time service.

If only it were that simple...

I manage several networks running mostly XP pro all syncing to local
Linux servers running NTP. The problem is that M$ in their wisdom
allowed machines syncing to a LOCAL time server to calculate DST offsets
at the machine level. This is madness. Depending on the patch level the
time is either correct or off by 1 hour.

When I tested this back in February the desktop machine I used worked
fine without the latest patches. Some of the machines on various
networks did fine without the latest patches, but most did not.

I used WindowsXP-KB931836-x86-ENU.exe on any machines that had SP2 and
tzedit.exe on the others to get the clocks right. Unfortunately these
patches only correct the time not fix the root of the problem since the
time offset is still calculated on the local machine. On a network all
machines should sync to the time offered by their LOCAL NTP server if
there is one. This would assure that all times were consistent across
the local network. If the network was large enough to need time zone
compensation then a time server should be designated for each local
network (or time zone) for synchronization.

end of rant...