When people dabble with the wonders of Linux by making their computers dual boot, there comes a time that when you boot into Windows, the time is off. This will make the Internet behave funny, with some sites refusing to load. You can force Windows to correct the time manually but its a pain. This guide shows how to do this for both Windows and Linux.
Temporary fix for Windows
If you don’t use Linux that often, you can correct the time on your computer easily.
- Right click on the clock and choose Adjust date/time.
- Turn off Set time automatically.
- Presss the Change button and change the time, then press the Change button.
- Turn on Set time automatically.
- Alternatively, in Windows 11 press the Sync now button to set the time using Internet time servers.
1. Fix Windows to use Universal Time
The fix for Windows is a registry entry change. It tells Windows that the internal clock is set to UTC instead of local time.
Download this registry file then open it to install it to Windows. When you restart your computer, it will read the internal clock in Universal Time.
2. Fix Linux to use Local Time
In Linux you make this change with:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1
You can undo this change with:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 0
Conclusion
As you can see, you can make the changes to either Windows or Linux easily, just don’t do both changes.
If the date and time is always out by a huge margin, then you need to replace what is known as a CMOS clock battery, this keeps the internal clock in sync with the current time.
