Stuck Clock in Vista

[davej99]

Most of you probably know this, but it was new to me, a Vista dummy.

I noticed the clock was wrong and when I tried to force an update in Date & Time the resync just timed out. After wasting an age on various NTP servers, and fiddling with router and Macafee firewalls to no avail, I found running "w32tm /resync /rediscover" in a command prompt did the trick and now scheduled and forced time resyncs work well.

It turns out you do need to open a NTP hole in Macafee if it has not done so automatically, and there is a tick box to do that for UDP on port 123, but it seems many folks find this is not the cause of the problem and it turns out Vista has forgotten where to look for the time server and won't be told by a forced resync.

[Rik]

I've seen something similar in XP, Dave, but as I use a small applet which corrects the time at 15 minute intervals, my solution has always been to turn off the Windows function.

[davej99]

But you are a smart guy Rik. Naively, I expect things to work out of the box, without resorting to 3rd party solutions, like fitting a BMW engine into a Cortina. It seems to me Vista is a triumph of marketing over engineering; the result of an irresistable urge to fix what ain't broke; and when it is sorted out we will all get to use another piece of rubbish.

I was amazed to discover that Outlook Express and Address Book have been junked along with the ability to sort contacts into directories that appear when selecting contacts to compose new mail. So now I get to scroll through 700 contacts to find the one I want. Microsofts solution is to use contacts groups and then delete the recipients you do not need and delete. But, oh look, I get to include a pretty picture in by contacts file. That makes all the difference.

[Noreen]

Never had a problem with the Vista clock either.

[Rik]

MS do have good ways to infuriate users, don't they, Dave. Change for change sake.

[Sebby]

But you are a smart guy Rik. Naively, I expect things to work out of the box

They do. Just not on Windows, and certainly not Vista.

[Simon]

Or rather, they do, but not how you want them to. 

[LesD]

MS do have good ways to infuriate users, don't they, Dave. Change for change sake.

Just like when Tesco move everything round on to different shelves. 

I have said it before I have Vista, I use Vista but I don't really like it and the change for changes sake is one of the things that fuels this in my case. Why oh why did MS have to break some of the bits of previous OS's that weren't broke? Audio facilities is one of my biggest gripes!  OK I have knife and forked most of it back again but why should this be necessary when it all used to work straight from the box?

_______________________________________________________________________

Regards,

Les.

P.S. Never had the Clock stick though!   

[Rik]

Every release of Windows from Win3 onwards has attempted to control the way we use our computers more, and that's something I really object to, Les.

[JB]

Just like when Tesco move everything round on to different shelves. 

They do don't they.

Has actually stopped us shopping there a lot as we are always in a hurry and can't be bothered searching.

[Rik]

It's done, I am told, to force you to look at other products. Doesn't work for me, I'm as likely to walk away as look.

[LesD]

It's done, I am told, to force you to look at other products. Doesn't work for me, I'm as likely to walk away as look.

Exactly my stand. I have been known to say loudly, "They have moved things again, let's go to ASDA, we may as well search there as here".

You guessed it, no one listens, hears or cares! 

[Sebby]

That's most large corporations for you!

[Rik]

But not IDNet.