Enable NTP Server in Windows 7

Hi folks,

I am using Oracle VirtualBox and I pause and resume my VMs with days between. However, a couple of my VMs cannot have Guest Additions installed and when I pause one of these VMs and wake it up again, its internal clock continues where it stopped when the host went down.

In order to have the clocks synchronized I have enabled the NTP server on my Windows 7 host machine and use NTP updating in my VMs. Since I've been looking for a while, until I found where to activate the NTP server on Windows 7 I will explain how to do it:

1. Open the Registry Editor and browse to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpServer"
2. Change the value of "Enabled" to "1"
   
   
3. Browse to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\W32Time\Config"
4. Change the value of "AnnounceFlags" to "5" (it means to use local CMOS time clock, KB314054)
   
   
5. Open "Services" and search for "Windows Time"
   

   
6. Start "Windows Time" and set Startup type to "Automatic"
   

   

That's it. I hope this helps.

Regards,

Roy