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windows:add_multiple_ntp_servers

Windows - Add multiple NTP servers

Neither the Windows Settings app nor the Control Panel will let you configure multiple time-servers in Windows.


  • Open an administrative Command Prompt by searching for “cmd” in the Start menu, right-clicking on the program, and choosing “Run as administrator”.
  • Ensure that the time service is currently running by stopping and starting it by entering following command and pressing Enter:
        net stop w32time & net start w32time
  • Configure your list of preferred time-servers by listing their IP or DNS addresses within the quotation marks in the following command; separating multiple servers with spaces:
        w32tm /config /update /manualpeerlist:"pool.ntp.org time.windows.com time.apple.com time.google.com"

    NOTE: The above example configures Windows to use time-servers operated by the NTP Pool Project, Windows, Apple, and Google.

    There should not be any line breaks in the command; it’s all on one line!

  • Tell Windows to resynchronize its time against the newly configured time-servers and finally show the new configuration to confirm that everything is working:
        w32tm /resync
        w32tm /query /peers

NOTE: These changes will not show up if you go to inspect your internet time configuration in the Time and Date section of the Control Panel.

You should not make any changes there to avoid overwriting your manual configuration.

You can use the peers-querying command (w32tm /query /peers), as shown above to inspect your configuration.

You can also overwrite your setup with different time-servers by updating your configuration again as shown above.

You may find references online to make changes in the System Registry (regedit) to accomplish the same thing, but those changes are Windows-version dependent and will not stick when you upgrade your system from one release version to the next.

The instructions in this article apply to Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and 7 (and corresponding releases of Windows Server.)

windows/add_multiple_ntp_servers.txt · Last modified: 2021/01/21 14:42 by peter

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