I've lost count how many times a bad time setting on a server has caused havoc on a Windows server. It is quite often the simple underlying problem when we are called in to sort out a badly maintained network. This is a shame because it is quite simple to set up.

Here are the basic steps:

Open a command prompt on the server and type the following commands:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:”0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org”,0×8 /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes

w32tm /config /update

net stop w32time && net start w32time
w32tm /resync /rediscover

That should be all you need to do - just check in the event logs to make sure all is well.