The Trouble With Time

Several surprised readers wrote to report that the YATS32 utility I recommended in the December 2001 column contained the dreaded Nimda virus. Though there's no guarantee that even the highest-quality shareware will arrive at your computer virus-free, this case was a rare false positive. A Symantec Norton AntiVirus definition file released about the same time as the December issue contained an error that caused it to incorrectly detect Nimda in the InstallShield install utility included with the YATS32 download. If you have Norton AntiVirus, update your virus definition file. See Symantec's site for more details.

The same column did contain misinformation that was completely my fault. In testing Windows 2000's Internet time commands, I repeatedly received an error that kept me from connecting to the remote time server. I incorrectly attributed this error to my unique firewall settings; but in fact Windows 2000's Net time command simply won't work for most users (see Microsoft's Knowledge Base article for details).

To query an Internet time server, the Net time command must be running on a Windows 2000 server configured as a primary domain controller. Since very few of us have access to such a server, the Windows 2000 Net time commands are pretty much useless. I apologize for wasting your time with my poor research. Thankfully, the rest of my advice was correct.

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