Best Answer:
Hi guys. If you google the peer stratum/host stratum error you're seeing, you'll see literally thousands of folks encountering the same error, all with different theories. In reality, the issue is with the new Daylight Savings rules that went into effect this year. You might remember Spring sprung earlier this year and none of the various software vendors were given ANY warning, so Outlook calendars, PC clocks, Bluetooths etc were all off by an hour afterwards.
Anyway, the root cause of the issue you're seeing is that Microsoft XP put out a patch to correct the date and time during MARCH, but the patch fell apart at midnight on April 1st...a rather MAMMOTH oversight. The problem was reported to Microsoft that day and they JUST released an updated patch for it literally moments ago. So please do a Windows Update right now (don't do the express...do the advanced update so you can choose JUST the DST fix unless you really want to get another 2 hours of fixes you probably don't need) and you'll be fixed up right quick.
Curious...there's been none of this in the news...apparently Microsoft managed to bury the issue somehow, it's not even in their own Knowledge section! Anyway...I just got the patch 10 minutes ago and it appears to be working fine.
As a side note, this is one of the myriad of reasons the National Institute of Standards (who provides you with your time synch) is now banning Vista from its list of acceptable operating systems. True story - link here: http://digg.com/microsoft/US_National_Institute_of_Standards_and_Technology_bans_Windows_Vista . Sad, but true.
I'm in the process of switching to Linux myself. This was the last straw for me.
Source(s):
http://www.tabletquestions.com/windows-xp/66036-windows-time-no-longer-automatically-updates.html
