Citrix Time Issues

As with all things virtual, time is very important. When dealing with a virtual environment, your environment must be properly sync’d or you’ll start seeing a lot of weird issues plaguing you and your users.

During setup you will need to modify the registry to point to local time servers.

  • HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\Type                       change value from NT5DS to NTP
  • HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config\AnnounceFlags              change dword value from 10 to 5
  • HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer             change value to a local timeserver

After a new update of the Citrix Management Agent (XenTools), it has it’s own built-in time server protocols that mess with the provisioned VM’s.  Why they did this I don’t know. Even though the above settings will be correct, the VM’s time will keep reverting back in time 4-6 hours. This will result in the VM becoming unregistered and loss of contact.

To fix this modify the following registry keys.

HKLM\Software\Citrix\XenTools\HostTime=”UTC”

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Citrix\XenTools\HostTime=”UTC”

Regardless if the key is blank, enter the value “Local” for both.

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