I'm currently setting up a Windows 2003 AD. The automated
build that we use sets all servers to synch with a time
server in our company.

My questions are:
1. When I move one of these servers into the Active
Directory, will they automtically switch to look at the
PDCE for time?
2. If I promote some of these servers to DCs, where will
they look for time?
3. If they don't change, are there any implications to
leaving these servers to synch with a time source outside
the domain?
4. If they don't change, do you have any suggestions for
getting them to synch with the PDCE?

Thanks for any advice you can lend me.

If the W32Time service has been set to look at an alternate server, it
will continue to do so until told differently. The following KB article
documents the W32Time service entries.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;223184

One setting to note is the Type registry entry. It is, by default, set
to Nt5DS. If your servers have been changed to look at other NTP time
servers, this entry will be set to NTP. For the default time
synchronization behavior to work, this registry entry has to be set back
to Nt5DS.

All DCs will, by default, look to the server holding the PDC Emulator
FSMO role for its time. If the W32Time service has been modified,
though, this might not be the case (see above).

I can't think of any off the top of my head. So long as the time source
is accurate, I don't see any problem. I would suggest, though, that you
setup the servers, as well as clients, to use the domain hierarchy for
time synchronization, as this should simplify things in the long run.

Modify the W32Time service so that that is back to default (Time=Nt5DS).

Here's some information which might be of some help.

This is a Windows 2000 document, but nothing has really changed, so the
information still applies. This pretty much explains it all, though.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...intimeserv.doc

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;224799

Ken, thanks very much for your extremely helpful
information. I'm going to set them back to the default.

Regards
Peter
pquadarella@tiaa-cref.org