Change Date Format for Existing Users on Windows Server 2008R2

Question

How do you change the date format settings on Windows Server 2008R2 for existing domain users, without recreating their local profile or manually setting the format by giving them temporary admin permissions?

Answer 1

For future reference we didn't really find a suitable solution for this. In the end we elevated each account temporarily to admin, changed the settings, and then reverted back to a normal account.

Other possible solutions from around the web included

1) Deleting the profile of the user, in which the date/time settings are stored. This would probably work, but we didn't want them to lose their desktops etc. 2) Use the new feature in Server 2008 group policy to change regional settings. This option did not work for us at all. 3) Set the date/time settings properly upon setup.

Next time, we're probably going to go with option three...

Answer 2

It looks like there is an alternative to the accepted answer which may help.

I was looking for a similar solution to apply Regional Settings to All Users and found this post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2012/08/16/how-to-change-regional-settings-for-all-users-on-a-computer.aspx

An overview of the steps from the article are as follows:

1. Launch Group Policy Management Console (gmpc.msc)
2. Right click Default Domain Policy and select Edit to open Group Policy Management Editor
3. In Group Policy Management Editor, navigate to Computer Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry
4. Right Click on Registry > New > Collection Item
5. Give your collection a name
6. Right Click on this Registry Item > New > Registry Wizard
7. Select Local Computer and click Next
8. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > International

9. Select the below registry items under this registry key:

   Locale, LocaleName, sCountry, sLanguage, sLongDate, iCountry, iDate, iMeasure, iNeggCurr

Link this to the Default Domain Policy. Your computers will receive these changes the next time they update their policies.

I haven't yet tested but the post applies to Group Policy Preferences (GPP) in a Domain running Windows Server 2008 or windows Server 2008 R2. For Windows 2003 Servers, you can use the GPP Client Side Extensions.

Hope it helps someone.