About Settings (.reg) Files
Domain Time Servers and Clients are background system services that obtain all of their running settings from the Windows Registry.
Domain Time components get their initial registry settings by importing default template files during installation or upgrade. As of version 5.1,
the templates are standard Windows Registry Editor .reg files in either Unicode or ANSI text format. Previous versions used a proprietary .ini
template file (domtime.ini), which has been deprecated.
The default template file for Server is dtserver.reg; Client uses dtclient.reg.
These files are included in the original distribution files used during Setup or in the source files used for remote installation by Domain Time II
Manager.
During installation/upgrade, the appropriate template file is copied from the distribution files to the Windows/System32 folder
of the target machine.
Once installed, Domain Time will not use the default .reg template file again, unless the user clicks a Reset to Defaults button on the Control Panel Applet,
or if a Reset Configuration is commanded remotely from Domain Time II Manager.
You may import or export Domain Time II configuration settings using the utilities on this page.
Starting with version 5.1, Domain Time Client can import/export its settings using
a standard Windows Registry .reg file. This allows you to easily make backup copies of the settings, create a custom .reg file to use as a template
for configuring other machines, or to use in creating a custom installation package or script.
The Import/Export function automatically excludes any settings that are machine-specific so that the .reg file may safely be imported on any other copy of
Domain Time Client (of the same version) without causing disruption.
This section allows you to save the current configuration to a .reg file.
The .reg file will be created using the currently configured options of the Client. You should review each of the settings of the Control Panel applet
to be sure that they are correct before exporting the file.
If you expect to be importing the .reg file on machines that need differing configurations (such as for machines in different cities that use different
time sources), you should configure the applet for each configuration, and then export a separate .reg file for it.
You may use exported .reg files as template files for installing/upgrading multiple machines using Domain Time Manager.
Template files need to be located in the
C:\Program Files\Domain Time II\Templates\[Server][Client]\ folder of the Domain
Time II Manager machine. Template .reg files located in those folders will automatically be made available for use when installing or upgrading using Manager.
Note, if you launched the Control Panel applet using Manager, the export utility will automatically offer to save the .reg
file in the proper directory on the Manager machine. Otherwise, you will have to manually save or copy the file to the Templates folder on the Manager machine.
Exported templates may be edited manually using any text editor. Templates may contain all exported settings, or only the specific settings you want to change.
IMPORTANT: Although .reg files created using this utility are saved in standard Windows registry file format, it is not equivalent to
exporting the registry keys using Windows' RegEdit program. A number of registry settings on a running Domain Time system are machine-specific,
and are likely to cause problems if directly copied into another machine's registry. Those settings are automatically excluded when you export
using this utility, so you should always use this utility to create a Domain Time .reg file.
Use this section to import the default settings or a custom .reg file.
Installation defaults
(the settings used when Domain Time was first installed on this machine)
This selection will reload the settings file that was used when the product was installed.
The file is named
dtclient.reg and is located
in the /System32 folder on a running system. This is the default file used
during installation. See the Rollout page of the
installation instructions for more information on using this file as a setup template.
Choose File:
Use this to import an existing .reg file.
CAUTION: It may be necessary to restart the Domain Time Client service after importing the settings file.
Although the .reg file is saved in standard Windows Registry file format and you can install it by clicking on the .reg file in Windows Explorer,
it is usually better practice to import the file using this utility since it does additional validation checking on the values and attempts to
exclude items not appropriate to this version or machine.
Import/Export
Proceed to the Registry Settings page
Back to the Clock Control page