New Releases of WinSNTP!



February 19th, 1996

New versions of WinSNTP are now available for both 16 and 32 bit environments. You 
can obtain
the new versions following the links below. The latest version numbers are: 

     Version 1.9f (16-bit) 
     Version 2.7f (32-bit) 
     Version 2.7f (32-bit NT Service) 


So what's new?

The latest version of WinSNTP has a number of additional capabilities: 

     Time server support 
     Single shot operation 
     Run as a hidden window 
     Operation as a Windows NT Service 
     Override for operation with badly drifting PC clocks 

Time server support

You can now use WinSNTP to synchronize a group of other PCs to the same time! We've 
added
server support so that WinSNTP will act both as an SNTP client and SNTP server. Server
support has several uses. It enables the load placed on a central NTP server to be 
minimized by
electing one PC as a master PC and having all the other PCs use it as their Time 
server. You can
also use server support to keep a group of PCs sync'd together even when you don't 
have access
to a remote NTP server - remember when you do this that the time served by WinSNTP 
will be
dependent upon the local clock of the master PC, so set it carefully! 

Single shot operation

You can select single shot operation via the '-s' command line flag. This causes 
WinSNTP to exit as
soon as it has successfully updated the system clock. This option is highly useful 
if you access the
Internet via a dial-up line and want to run WinSNTP whenever your connection is 
brought up or if
you want to run WinSNTP from the System Agent under Windows 95. 

Run as a hidden window

Tired of seeing WinSNTP occupy space on the Task bar or of seeing that icon on the 
desktop?
The '-h' command line flag lets you run WinSNTP as a hidden window under all 
versions of
Windows! You can run WinSNTP and it disappears! 

Operation as a Windows NT Service

System administrators of Windows NT servers or workstations can now configure 
WinSNTP to
run as a system service. Once installed as a service, the NT service manager can 
start WinSNTP
automatically as soon as the system starts. WinSNTP runs in the background 
invisible to users. 

Override for operation with badly drifting PC clocks

Some PC clocks drift excessively in the course of a day or less while others have 
drained CMOS
batteries and so the clock gets reset every time the PC is turned on. Normally, 
WinSNTP will only
slew the PC clock a maximum of 1 hour in case the timezone information hasn't been 
set. The latest
release introduces the '-i' command line flag that forces WinSNTP to slew the clock 
no matter what
the offset error is between the PC clock and the NTP server. 


Ver: 1.2a - February 19th, 1996
Stuart Phillips / Solaris Technologies / stu@solaris.com