Im wondering, if it's necessary for a windows system (Win7/10) to set the correct system time/date in BIOS. Has this any effects on programs, updates ?
2 Answers
An individual computer does not need the proper date and time to be be set for it to function. The OS does not care what the date and time is either.
Obviously, applications that rely on the current date/time will not function as they should. Also, 3rd party applications may look at the date and time to see if they are properly licensed. If the date/time is to far from what it feels is proper, the applications might not function properly, or stop working entirely.
All that being said, Windows 7 and newer automatically check Microsoft's NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers to set the proper date and time. If the machine has internet access, it should set the BIOS date and time properly. If the CMOS battery is dead, or the computer's internal clock is poorly made, it may drift from the proper time.
All that being said, in a networked environment, having a computer with an incorrect time can cause issues. One example would be if the computer's clock is off by more than 5 minutes, this can cause issues with logging into Active Directory environments, as kerberos authentication requires the time to be relatively correct.
1I ran into a date issue when building a new Win 10 Pro system on a Gigabyte MB. For reasons not known, the MB system year date was initially set to 3029, and I did not change it assuming Win 10 would find the correct date and update as needed. Win 10 install was attempted and failed, many, many times and AT EXACTLY THE SAME POINT IN THE INSTALLATION, just before giving you options to set up preferences in Win 10. New MB obtained and installed, Win 10 would not install. New CPU installed, Win 10 would not install. Ram was tested thoroughly and passed; 1 stick or the other was tried in both slots, no change. New USB disk and several iterations of running Windows Media Creation tools and 2 different USB drives, no change. New power supply was installed, no change. New Intel 665 M2 SSD was installed, no change.
The system date (3029) in the bios was noticed to be incorrect, so manually updated to 2020. F10 and save, and before Windows install could start again, system powered off, then back on, then back into bios to check date year. The bios system date year reverted to 3029! As long as the bios system date was 3029, Win 10 would not install.
So the SYSTEM DATE IN BIOS is quite important, at least when it is way off, like 1000 years!!
To save such a problem, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE CORRECT SYSTEM DATE IN YOUR BIOS when doing a clean install of Windows 10.
