Setting system clock from WinPE

[MTNMN51]

Can anyone help me? I just recently started using Windows PE 2005 in order to automate hardware configuration on the front end of our ADS deployment process. We previously used DOS boot floppies to set the time, configure the RAID settings, and to set the boot order. However, HP has stopped support for the DOS utilities in the Smartstart Scripting Toolkit. So, I am trying to replace the functionality that we had with the DOS utilities with the utilities that HP provides for use with WinPE.

Setting the time is critical before booting the ADS Deployment Agent. It uses Kerberos authentication, so the image will never deploy if the time is not close to that of the ADS controller. My problem is that when I set the time in WinPE using net time \\servername /set /y it correctly sets the time within the WinPE session. However, when I reboot, I can see that the clock has not been reset. I don't understand why it would be different under WinPE.

Does anyone know how to reset the system clock permanently from WinPE? Thanks in advance for any help that you can provide.

[eastonj]

As you've discovered, WinPE2005 wont set the hardware clock. See this page, and do a search on that page

for the term "Net Time" for a MS confirmation (of sorts...).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community...803_tn_sys.mspx

Either add Net Time /set to a local server in your StartNet.cmd so it runs on each boot of PE,

or find a cmd line tool to set the time via SNTP to a local time server and put that in StartNet.cmd...

-Jeff

[MTNMN51]

Thanks for your response! But, I need a solution that actually resets the BIOS clock so that after exiting the WinPE and rebooting into the ADS Deployment Agent, the time is already set.

If I could find a way to synchronize the time as the ADS Deployment Agent loads, that would work as well. The DA uses Kerberos, so it fails if the time is not close to that of the ADS server. I tried setting an NTP server in my DHCP settings, but it appears that the DA doesn't pick that up when it loads.

[eastonj]

I'm not using ADS, just a scripted unattend install. I got around it by doing the net time /set at each boot of PE

and then doing a net time /set after win2003 was installed. The final time sets the hardware clock as its running

under Win2003 at that point.

From the MS transcript they implied that a previous version of PE actually did set the hardware clock. If your process

doesnt need any of the features in PE2005, try an older version of PE??

-Jeff

[Jazkal]

I tested with WinPE 2.0, and net time does work.

[MTNMN51]

Thanks! I assume that you mean that the BIOS clock was actually changes after exiting WinPE.

Unfortunately, ADS 1.1 is very specific in its requirement for WinPE 2005. However, when I get a chance, I'll attempt to create a WinPE 2.0 repository. The documentation for ADS was written prior to the release of WinPE 2.0, so it is entirely possible that it will work.

Again, thanks for your help!

[Jazkal]

Yes the system BIOS was updated. After rebooting the system, and entering the BIOS, the correct time and date were set.

I have not tested WinPE2 on ADS, but I would not think that it would work. You will probably need to use WDS or PXELinux if you want to use WinPE 2.0.