Synchronizing time between two Windows 7 machines connected with a LAN cable

Question

I have a number laptops that run our application while connected to each other in pairs with an ethernet cable, but not connected to any external network or the internet. T

I need the connected pair to synchronize their system times, but since every computer needs to be able to synch with any other computer, I can't define one computer to be a time-server and the other to be a client.

Is there a way to do this with NTP? Or some other way?

Solution 1

NET TIME is the way to go. If you do NET TIME \computername /SET it will ask you to confirm if you want to set the time. Just "assign" one of your systems to be the master.

Solution 2

Maybe you can use the Windows Time Service Tools with the manualpeerlist options?

See another article here: How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows Server

Solution 3

You can use NET TIME command to synchronize time between two computers.

net time /?

The syntax of this command is:

NET TIME

[\\computername | /DOMAIN[:domainname] | /RTSDOMAIN[:domainname]] [/SET]

Windows also has a NTP server, just look in Windows Components (or wherever depending on win-version).

Comments

[Markus Roth]

Thank you for your help. The Windows Time Service Tools seem to only apply to Windows Server, while we use Windows 7 clients. And the other article describes a client/server hierarchical setup, which is not applicable in my situation.

[Simon Mourier]

@Markus - the tool exists also on Windows Vista/7