By default, Windows Vista synchronizes once every 7 days with time.windows.com along with every other user out there.

Let's change this to sync every half day with several NTP servers to get a more reliable time.

First of all go to the NTP Pool Project and browse to the page of your country, I'll use the Belgium NTP Pool as an example.

Let's start with the simple change and click on your system clock and select change date and time settings...

On the tab Internet Time select Change settings... and as a server, enter the name of your country's main pool, be.pool.ntp.org for Belgium. Press Update now to test it, and finally close all windows again.

At this point you're randomly picking an NTP server in your country for your weekly update. Let's improve this a bit by adding multiple servers.

Open an administrative command prompt and enter the following command (replace the server names by the list of your country, space separated, surrounded by double quotes):

 
net time /setsntp:"0.be.pool.ntp.org 1.be.pool.ntp.org 2.be.pool.ntp.org 3.be.pool.ntp.org"
w32tm /query /peers
net stop w32time
net start w32time
w32tm /resync
w32tm /query /peers

You will have noticed there are now four NTP servers in the list.

 
C:\>w32tm /query /peers
#Peers: 4

Peer: 0.be.pool.ntp.org
State: Active
Time Remaining: 595.8760000s
Mode: 3 (Client)
Stratum: 3 (secondary reference - syncd by (S)NTP)
PeerPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)
HostPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)

Peer: 1.be.pool.ntp.org
State: Active
Time Remaining: 595.8760000s
Mode: 3 (Client)
Stratum: 2 (secondary reference - syncd by (S)NTP)
PeerPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)
HostPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)

Peer: 2.be.pool.ntp.org
State: Active
Time Remaining: 595.8760000s
Mode: 3 (Client)
Stratum: 2 (secondary reference - syncd by (S)NTP)
PeerPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)
HostPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)

Peer: 3.be.pool.ntp.org
State: Active
Time Remaining: 595.8760000s
Mode: 3 (Client)
Stratum: 2 (secondary reference - syncd by (S)NTP)
PeerPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)
HostPoll Interval: 10 (1024s)

When you run w32tm /query /configuration you will notice the SpecialPollInterval setting will list 604800, which is 7 days in seconds.

To change the interval, open up regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient and locate the SpecialPollInterval DWORD value.

Change this to Decimal 43200 (Hex 0000a8c0), which is equal to 12 hours in seconds.

Close regedit and execute the following commands:

 
net stop w32time
net start w32time
w32tm /query /configuration

This will now return a lot information, including the following lines:

 
SpecialPollInterval: 43200 (Local)
Type: NTP (Local)
NtpServer: 0.be.pool.ntp.org 1.be.pool.ntp.org 2.be.pool.ntp.org 3.be.pool.ntp.org (Local)

Congratulations, at this point you are succesfully syncing your computer every 12 hours against multiple NTP servers.

I've done this as a result of my previous IPv6 tunnel article, to make sure I'm running nearly equal with SixXS, which you can check at SixXS Time Check.

Update: Windows 7 deprecated net time /setsntp, use this instead:

 
w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"0.be.pool.ntp.org 1.be.pool.ntp.org 2.be.pool.ntp.org 3.be.pool.ntp.org"

I used to have an IPv6 tunnel on my old machine, but since I moved to a new desktop I didn't get around to setting it up again. That's gonna change today.

First of all, why would you want it? Well, here's a start, as well as the fact that it's geeky and lets you learn more about IPv6.

Start by going to SixXS and sign up for an account, it took about a day for mine to get approved.

After you received your account, you can login and request a tunnel. Make sure you request a PoP close to you, and you will most likely want to request an ayiya tunnel.

While waiting for approval, we can already prepare some software parts for our tunnel.

Go to the OpenVPN Downloads Page and download the OpenVPN 2.1 RC15 installer. This is needed for the tap901 in Vista, since that one is signed.

Run the installer and deselect everything except the "TAP Virtual Ethernet Adapter". Go ahead and install it, it'll create a new network adapter, which I renamed to IPv6 for clarity.

Go into the properties of this new adapter and navigate to the IPv4 settings. Manually assign an IP address which is in the same subnet as your main network. E.g.: My main LAN hands out IPs via DHCP in the range of 192.168.123.100-200, subnet 255.255.255.0, so I assigned 192.168.123.99 to this IPv6 adapter.

Download the Aiccu console client, rename it to aiccu-console.exe and save it somewhere.

Also download the Windows 2003 Resource Kit and install it.

At this point we have to wait for our tunnel request to be approved before we can continue.

Once we received a mail, it's time to configure the aiccu client. Start by creating a file called aiccu.conf in the WINDOWS directory, containing the following:

 
username -SIXXS
password 

ipv6_interface IPv6
tunnel_id T

verbose true
daemonize true
automatic true
requiretls false

You can find your tunnel id on your SixXS Home Page.

Run the following commands as administrator to disable conflicting Vista IPv6 technologies:

 
netsh interface ipv6 6to4 set state state=disabled
netsh interface ipv6 isatap set state state=disabled
netsh interface ipv6 set teredo disable

Run the following command to speed up DNS requests, since Vista sometimes acts up when the IPv4 adapter doesn't have an IPv6 associated with it:

Cable is the name of my physical network adapter, you can copy the IPv6 listed, it doesn't really matter at this point.

 
netsh int ipv6 add address "Cable" 2002:81a8:102::

I also ran the following command to allow ICMP requests to come through over the tunnel, otherwise SixXS can not monitor it and will think it's inactive and it might get disabled.

 
netsh firewall set icmpsetting type=ALL mode=ENABLE

Run the following command to set your MTU to match the tunnel's MTU:

 
netsh int ipv6 set subinterface "IPv6" mtu=1280

At this point you can run aiccu-console.exe start as an administrator to test your tunnel.

This will provide a lot of output, and after a while you will see your network adapter listed as Identifying in Vista, after which it'll ask if this is a private or public network.

At this point you can open up a prompt and try to ping -6 ipv6.google.com to see if it all works. Normally everything should be fine.

You can now modify the aiccu.conf to state verbose false, since everything is alright now.

Now you can try surfing to Google IPv6 and [SixXS IPv6(http://www.ipv6.sixxs.net "SixXS IPv6") to check if that's working as well.

If all is fine, hit CTRL+C in the aiccu console to stop it. It's time to configure it as a service.

Navigate to the directory where you previously installed the Windows 2003 Resource Kit files and execute the following (mind the path):

 
instsrv.exe AICCU "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\srvany.exe"
sc description AICCU "Aiccu IPv6 Client"

Open up regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AICCU and create a new Key called Parameters.

Create a new String Value called Application below this key and as a value enter the full path to the aiccu console with the start command, e.g.: C:\IPv6\aiccu-console.exe start

Close regedit, go back to the prompt and type NET START AICCU and you will notice the IPv6 tunnel being set up.

Congratulations, you now got an IPv6 tunnel up and running, which automatically starts everytime you boot.

After a while you will be able to see graphs on the SixXS home page about your connection.

If you have any problems, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do, as well as update the post to include possible additional steps.