How to check - and fix - your date and time on your Windows PC?

You're right, by George, when I wrote that previous article I neglected to explain how to change your date/time settings on your PC. Fortunately, it's pretty easy, whether you're running Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Vista. Let me start with the former so you can see, and then we'll find that Vista has a very, very similar approach.

The good news up front, however, is that if you're reading this article, you're able to go online, which means you can query an Internet time server and set your clock quite precisely to the current date and time, even more accurately than any of the clocks in your house.

Let's start with what you're already familiar with: the clock on the lower right corner of your screen:

Now just double-click the time, and you'll get the Date and Time Properties window:

First off, you might just glance at that to see if it's wildly off or if it is indeed the correct date and time. Either way, let's make sure you're also using the Internet to keep things up-to-date. You can do so by clicking on the "Internet Time" tab:

At this point, you can sync with either time.windows.com (run by Microsoft) or time.nist.gov (run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a U.S. Government agency). I prefer the latter, actually.

Click on "Update Now" and:

Hopefully a second or two later you'll see a success message and, you guessed it, your computer will now be exactly on time.

Running Vista? It's even a bit easier. Simply click on the clock on the lower right once and you'll see:

Now click on "Change date and time settings..." and you'll have the same basic properties window, it's just a lot prettier:

To change the Internet time server, you'll need to click on "Change Settings", but otherwise, it's all functionally identical.