How to Implement a Policy to Set the Date Format

ID: Q216661

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4
Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition versions 4.0, 4.0 SP4
Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SUMMARY

This article describes how to determine the date format that is displayed to users when they log on to a computer.

MORE INFORMATION

A user can configure the date format using the Regional Settings tool in Control Panel.

You can apply a policy to a computer to control the date format that is displayed to the user (for example, MM/dd/yy or MM/dd/yyyy). The following registry key controls the date format:

Path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International
Name: sShortDate
Type: REG_SZ
Default value for U.S. English: MM/dd/yy

The following example shows the different values you can use for this registry key, and how the date is displayed for a specified value:


Value          Result
MM/dd/yy       03/08/98
M/d/yy         3/8/98
M/d/yyyy       3/8/1998
MM/dd/yyyy     03/08/1998
yy/MM/dd       98/03/08
dd-MMM-yy      03-Mar-98

Through the use of policies in Windows NT 4.0, you can write a custom .adm file and incorporate it into the policy file. For additional information about policy files and custom .adm templates, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q185589 Guide To Windows NT 4.0 Profiles and Policies (Part 4 of 6)

You can cut and paste the following information into a file and save it as a custom .adm file. After the .adm file is incorporated into the policy, you can configure the date format for users.


----------Start of Date Format ADM----------
CLASS USER

CATEGORY !!DATE
	KEYNAME "Control Panel\International"
	
	POLICY !!ShortDateFormat
		PART !!DateFormatDesc         EDITTEXT REQUIRED
		VALUENAME sShortDate
		END PART
	END POLICY
END CATEGORY	; Date


[strings]
Date="Date"
ShortDateFormat="Short Date Format"
DateFormatDesc="Please enter the date mask. For example MM/dd/yyyy"
----------End of Date Format ADM----------

For more information about how Microsoft products are affected by year 2000 (Y2K) issues, please see the following Microsoft World Wide Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/y2k/

Additional query words: year y2k hoax user profile

Keywords : kbenv kb2000
Version : winnt:4.0,4.0 SP1,4.0 SP2,4.0 SP3,4.0 SP4
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbinfo