I am not interested in synchronizing my local clock with the remote server. I only want to query it and print the result.
I would have assumed that there is a port of ntpq for Windows, but was unable to find any.
All other NTP clients I could find, they always want to install themselves as a service or make it otherwise clear that they want to synchronize my local time.
C:\> w32tm /stripchart /computer:foo
Tracking foo [1.2.3.4].
The current time is 19/07/2012 17:39:48 (local time).
17:39:48 d:-00.0000840s o:-25.3004160s [@ | ]
17:39:50 d:-00.0000680s o:-25.3070080s [@ | ]
17:39:52 d:-00.0000690s o:-25.2987405s [@ | ]
17:39:54 d:-00.0000680s o:-25.3071530s [@ | ]
17:39:56 d:-00.0000690s o:-25.2993985s [@ | ]
17:39:58 d:-00.0000680s o:-25.3070270s [@ | ]
Wireshark shows NTP packets being generated by this. Some versions of w32tm have a /query option
C:\>w32tm /stripchart /computer:us.pool.ntp.org /dataonly /samples:5
Tracking us.pool.ntp.org [208.87.221.228:123].
Collecting 5 samples.
The current time is 19/07/2012 18:36:32.
18:36:32, +03.3575094s
18:36:34, +03.3573679s
18:36:37, +03.3572986s
18:36:39, +03.3570290s
18:36:41, +03.3565357s
Bytefusion's ntpquery seems to be incredibly old, but works. Sadly, it requires initial installation, but the application files will work fine when copied to another system.
The latest and greatest NTP check tool I could find was this: https://www.galsys.co.uk/categories/ntp-server-checker.html
