[time-nuts] Setting Windows XP clock.
Esa Heikkinen
tn1ajb at nic.fi
Sun Jul 13 05:37:20 EDT 2014
Hi!
At first, Windows XP supports SNTP protocol (so it can be synchronized
with NTP server, but not with "millisecond" grade accuracy) and it uses
time.windows.com as default server. Maybe Microsoft is closed that
server or something, if it doesn't work anymore. However it's easy to
change the NTP server, like Ed Palmer alrady described.
It's also possible to use local NTP server, I use Symmetricom/Datum
TymServe 2100 to synchronize the system cloks for all Windows computers.
Works fine and does not need connection outside local network.
Any Windows computer can also act as NTP server, if "millisecond" grade
time is not needed. Registry change is needed to enable the Windows NTP
server, Google if you want to do this. In addition, the system running
as NTP server must also have working NTP client configuration so that it
syncrhonizes itself. But remember, integrated Windows NTP is not very
accurate, the time may have even more than ten seconds offsets.
> You do not want to have your XP box connected to the internet at all.
> This is not something that can be dealt with by any anti-virus software you
> are running.
I even have Windows 2000 computer having 24/7 internet connection. This
is a server computer running 24/7, doing certain tasks. Windows 2000
support is stopped many years ago and also there's not even anti-virus
software compatible with Windows 2000 anymore. Sounds dangerous? Not
necessary - there has not been any trouble ever...
The secret is that this (and all other computers) are behind NAT
firewall so there's no direct access to this (or other) Windows
computers. Second thing is (maybe most important), that this computer is
NOT used for any web browsing or e-mails (which are most common way to
infect any unprotected computer).
By the way, XP support is not fully stopped yet, there's still monthly
malware removal updates coming. Last one happened just few days ago. We
still use XP for work (with anti-virus software of course) and there's
never been any problems with it. Any suspicious traffic from local
network to the Internet will be noticed by network monitoring, but
there's haven't been any. XP is safe, if it's behing network firewall.
One easy trick to keep any Windows computer safe is to use Jotti's
Malware Scan service before running any new .exe files downloaded from
Internet:
http://virusscan.jotti.org/
This is an easy-to use online service, where you can send files for
scanning. It uses more than 20 anti-virus tools to scan the file and
reports the results from each tool. If the file is infected, there will
be many alerts, even when the anti-virus software installed in own
computer doesn't give any alert.
Connecting any Windows computer directly to the Internet (without NAT or
nework firewall) or DMZ is not recommended at all, even if it has most
recent Windows version. There will be always new and undetected
vulnerabilities. That's the reason why the Windows updates exists.
--
73s!
Esa
OH4KJU
More information about the time-nuts
mailing list