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Disabling Time Synchronization

Details

When I suspend a virtual machine, the next time I resume that virtual machine it synchronizes the time to adjust it to the host. Time is also resynchronized when I migrate the virtual machine using VMotion, take a checkpoint, restore to a checkpoint, shrink the virtual disk, or restart the tools service in the virtual machine (including rebooting the virtual machine). In the VMware Tools control panel, the time synchronization checkbox is unchecked. Is there a way to completely disable time synchronization?

Solution

The time synchronization checkbox controls only whether time is periodically resynchronized while the virtual machine is running. Even if this box is not checked, VMware Tools by default synchronize the virtual machine's time after a few specific events that are likely to leave the time incorrect.
 
If you want to completely disable time synchronization in the guest, open the virtual machine's configuration file (.vmx) in a text editor and set the following options to zero, as shown below.
 
tools.syncTime = "0"
time.synchronize.continue = "0"
time.synchronize.restore = "0"
time.synchronize.resume.disk = "0"
time.synchronize.shrink = "0"
time.synchronize.tools.startup = "0"
 

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  • KB Article: 1189
  • Updated: Aug 14, 2009
  • Products:
    VMware ESX
    VMware GSX Server
    VMware Player
    VMware Server
    VMware Workstation