[ntp:questions] ntp.conf location on Windows

Martin Burnicki martin.burnicki at meinberg.de
Mon Sep 8 09:15:54 UTC 2008


Ryan,

Ryan Malayter wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:52 AM, Martin Burnicki
> <martin.burnicki at meinberg.de> wrote:
>> Please note that especially under Windows things may look different. The
>> NTP service first tries to open %windir%\ntp.conf, and, if that file does
>> not exist, %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\ntp.conf.
>>
>> The GUI installers provided by Meinberg override these settings with an
>> etc\ directory below the program installation path, by default \program
>> files\ntp\etc. The configured setting can be retrieved from the ImagePath
>> registry key of the NTP service registry entry.
> 
> On Windows, the isn't defined place for 3rd party service
> configuration files the All Users profile? If so, shouldn't ntpd use
> something like:
> %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\ntp\ntp.conf
> 
> When you stick read-write files into %WINDIR% or %PROGRAMFILES%,
> you're braking conventions that enable forward and backward
> compatibility. Almost all of the software which was "broken" by Vista
> or Win 2008 ignored the MS-defined file placement rules (which I think
> have been documented since NT4 in the mid 1990s).

Do you have a pointer where these locations are specified by Microsoft?

This would not only affect the config file but also the location of the
drift file and optionally the log files.
 
IIRC the current location below %PROGRAMFILES% had been chosen after a
discussion about the time when our first GUI installer was released.

Of course this can be discussed again and changed in future versions.

Martin
-- 
Martin Burnicki

Meinberg Funkuhren
Bad Pyrmont
Germany




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