How did my computer's clock GAIN a week?

Factual Questions
1

I gnerally don’t attention the date on my computer, but recently I have discovered it has been set to one week in the future. I first noticed it when I went to get my e-mail (on 9/3) and the date on that page was a week ahead. The following day it was a week ahead and has been since. So, I decided to check my computer’s clock, and, voila! it was a week ahead. I checked some files I had created in the past week and there are none for the dates of 9/3 - 9/6!

I am absolutely positive I didn’t change it myself.

Any ideas as to what happened?

2

Sometimes a PC will stop keeping good time. This can be caused by a bad CMOS battery, but not always. It would be unusual for the date to change by a week without the time of day being wrong as well, but I suppose it’s possible.

The best solution is usually to synchronize the computer’s clock with an external time server. Windows 2000 and XP have NTP (Network Time Protocol) support built in. With Win9x you need to use third-party software. There are a few good programs available from download.com, such as Atomic Clock Sync. Just do not use GAIM (Gator) PrecisionTime. It’s spyware.

I haven’t heard of any programs that deliberately set the wrong date, but it couldn’t hurt to run a virus scan and then Spybot and/or Ad-aware.

3

I’ve run the virus scanner in the past day or two. I run Spybot and Window Washer everyday. Nothing unusual was found.

I’ll take a look at the battery.

4

There was another post here that the computer was taking the time from another one on the server that was a week ahead. That was a network situation.