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Disabling Time Synchronization (1189)
Details
In the VMware Tools control panel, the time synchronization checkbox is unselected, but you may experience these symptoms:
When you suspend a virtual machine, the next time you resume that virtual machine it synchronizes the time to adjust it to the host.
Time is resynchronized when you migrate the virtual machine using vMotion, take a snapshot, restore to a snapshot, shrink the virtual disk, or restart the tools service in the virtual machine (including rebooting the virtual machine).
Solution
The time synchronization checkbox controls only whether time is periodically resynchronized while the virtual machine is running. Even if this box is unselected, VMware Tools by default synchronizes the virtual machine's time after a few specific events that are likely to leave the time incorrect.
There are two methods to completely disable time synchronization in the guest. Perform one of these procedures:
Note: Unlike the normal periodic time sync, which can move the guest clock only forward, these special time syncs can move the guest clock either forward or backward. If you want your guests to never sync backward in time then please disable the options (by selecting "0" for each option).
Open the virtual machine's configuration file (/vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name/vm_name.vmx) using a text editor and set these options to zero. If the entries do not exist, add them.
Select the virtual machine in the VMware Infrastructure Client inventory and power off. On the Summary tab, click Edit Settings, then click the Options tab and select General (under Advanced). Click Configuration Parameters, then click Add Row and add this information:
For GSX and VMware Workstation, you need to use "FALSE" instead of "0". For example:
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
This Article Replaces
1006449
Update History
04/20/2012 - added time.synchronize.tools.enable = "0" and added note about disbling backward time sync as per R as per PR 175074 - rahulverma
06/17/2011 - added time.syncronize.resume.host = "0" as an options as this was added in PR 649469 - kadamson
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