Querying the time source in Windows Server 2012

Using w32tm we can query the time source of a server:

w32tm /source /query

w32tm /dumpreg /subkey:parameters

or you can find the information in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters

The latter command will output the NTP Server and the type of time configuration - which should be one of the following:

NoSync = No synchroization performed on the server.

NTP = Server is configured for NTP.

NT5DS = Server uses the domain heiracrhy for it's time information - in other words it finds and uses the DC holding the PDC Emulator FSMO role and asks it for it's time source. If there is a parent domain the PDC Emulator in the child domain will query the PDC emulator in the parent domain and so on. (To find the PDC Emulator for the domain you can usee: netdom query fsmo)

AllSync = Attempts to syncronize with all available time sources e.g. could be NTP and NT5DS etc.

And to confirm the ime source has been working we can issue: w32tm /query /status