Changing Time Zone Settings in Windows via CMD, PowerShell, and GPO | Windows OS Hub (2024)

Time zone, along with time and date, is one of the critical parameters of a computer. For Windows and applications to work correctly, the time zone must be set in accordance with the geographic location of the computer. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to change the time zone in Windows from the GUI, Command Prompt, PowerShell, and using Group Policy.

The new Settings app is used in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019/2016 to set the date and time zone. You can set the time zone from the GUI by right-clicking on the clock icon in the system tray and selecting Adjust date/time. By default, Windows tries to automatically select the time zone (the Set time zone automatically option is enabled). You can disable this option and set the required time zone manually by selecting it in the drop-down list.

Tip. You can also use the classic “Date and Time” Control Panel applet to change the time zone settings in Windows. Run the command timedate.cpl.

Allow or Prevent Users to Change Time Zone in Windows

By default, a user doesn’t need the administrator permissions to change the time zone (unlike changing date/time). This behavior can be changed using the Local Security Settings console (secpol.msc). Go to Security Settings -> Local Policy -> User Rights Assignment. The policyis called Change the time zone. As you can see, the time zone can be changed by the system, administrators, and all users. To prevent users from changing the time zone, remove the Users group from the list of accounts in this policy.

In Windows Server, only the Local Service and administrators have the privileges to change the time zone.

TZUtil.exe: How to Change the Time Zone in Windows 10 CMD?

To change the time zone in Windows 11/10/8.1 and Windows Server 2019/2016/2012 R2/, a special command-line tool tzutil.exe (Windows Time Zone Utility) is used. It first appeared in Windows 7. The tool’s executable file is located in %WINDIR%\System32 directory.

Let’s consider the features and capabilities of TZUtil.exe tool.

Run the command prompt (cmd.exe). To find out the current time zone and its identifier (TimeZoneID), run the command:

tzutil /g

In this example, Pacific Standard Time is the current time zone identifier.

Display the list of all available time zones as follows:
tzutil /l

TimeZone Id | TimeZone DisplayNameDateline Standard Time | (UTC-12:00) International Date Line WestUTC-11 | (UTC-11:00) Coordinated Universal Time-11Aleutian Standard Time | (UTC-10:00) Aleutian IslandsHawaiian Standard Time | (UTC-10:00) HawaiiMarquesas Standard Time | (UTC-09:30) Marquesas IslandsAlaskan Standard Time | (UTC-09:00) AlaskaUTC-09 | (UTC-09:00) Coordinated Universal Time-09Pacific Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-08:00) Baja CaliforniaUTC-08 | (UTC-08:00) Coordinated Universal Time-08Pacific Standard Time | (UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)US Mountain Standard Time | (UTC-07:00) ArizonaMountain Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-07:00) Chihuahua, La Paz, MazatlanMountain Standard Time | (UTC-07:00) Mountain Time (US & Canada)Central America Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) Central AmericaCentral Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)Easter Island Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) Easter IslandCentral Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-06:00) Guadalajara, Mexico City, MonterreyCanada Central Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) SaskatchewanSA Pacific Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) Bogota, Lima, Quito, Rio BrancoEastern Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-05:00) ChetumalEastern Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)Haiti Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) HaitiCuba Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) HavanaUS Eastern Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) Indiana (East)Turks And Caicos Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) Turks and CaicosParaguay Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) AsuncionAtlantic Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) Atlantic Time (Canada)Venezuela Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) CaracasCentral Brazilian Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) CuiabaSA Western Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) Georgetown, La Paz, Manaus, San JuanPacific SA Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) SantiagoNewfoundland Standard Time | (UTC-03:30) NewfoundlandTocantins Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) AraguainaE. South America Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) BrasiliaSA Eastern Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) Cayenne, FortalezaArgentina Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) City of Buenos AiresGreenland Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) GreenlandMontevideo Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) MontevideoMagallanes Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) Punta ArenasSaint Pierre Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) Saint Pierre and MiquelonBahia Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) SalvadorUTC-02 | (UTC-02:00) Coordinated Universal Time-02Mid-Atlantic Standard Time | (UTC-02:00) Mid-Atlantic - OldAzores Standard Time | (UTC-01:00) AzoresCape Verde Standard Time | (UTC-01:00) Cabo Verde Is.UTC | (UTC) Coordinated Universal TimeMorocco Standard Time | (UTC+00:00) CasablancaGMT Standard Time | (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, LondonGreenwich Standard Time | (UTC+00:00) Monrovia, ReykjavikW. Europe Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, ViennaCentral Europe Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, PragueRomance Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, ParisSao Tome Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) Sao TomeCentral European Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) Sarajevo, Skopje, Warsaw, ZagrebW. Central Africa Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) West Central AfricaJordan Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) AmmanGTB Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) Athens, BucharestMiddle East Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) BeirutEgypt Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) CairoE. Europe Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) ChisinauSyria Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) DamascusWest Bank Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) Gaza, HebronSouth Africa Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) Harare, PretoriaFLE Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) Helsinki, Kyiv, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, VilniusIsrael Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) JerusalemKaliningrad Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) KaliningradSudan Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) KhartoumLibya Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) TripoliNamibia Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) WindhoekArabic Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) BaghdadTurkey Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) IstanbulArab Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) Kuwait, RiyadhBelarus Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) MinskRussian Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) Moscow, St. Petersburg, VolgogradE. Africa Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) NairobiIran Standard Time | (UTC+03:30) TehranArabian Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) Abu Dhabi, MuscatAstrakhan Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) Astrakhan, UlyanovskAzerbaijan Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) BakuRussia Time Zone 3 | (UTC+04:00) Izhevsk, SamaraMauritius Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) Port LouisSaratov Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) SaratovGeorgian Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) TbilisiCaucasus Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) YerevanAfghanistan Standard Time | (UTC+04:30) KabulWest Asia Standard Time | (UTC+05:00) Ashgabat, TashkentEkaterinburg Standard Time | (UTC+05:00) EkaterinburgPakistan Standard Time | (UTC+05:00) Islamabad, KarachiIndia Standard Time | (UTC+05:30) Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New DelhiSri Lanka Standard Time | (UTC+05:30) Sri JayawardenepuraNepal Standard Time | (UTC+05:45) KathmanduCentral Asia Standard Time | (UTC+06:00) AstanaBangladesh Standard Time | (UTC+06:00) DhakaOmsk Standard Time | (UTC+06:00) OmskMyanmar Standard Time | (UTC+06:30) Yangon (Rangoon)SE Asia Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) Bangkok, Hanoi, JakartaAltai Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) Barnaul, Gorno-AltayskW. Mongolia Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) HovdNorth Asia Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) KrasnoyarskN. Central Asia Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) NovosibirskTomsk Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) TomskChina Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, UrumqiNorth Asia East Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) IrkutskSingapore Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) Kuala Lumpur, SingaporeW. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) PerthTaipei Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) TaipeiUlaanbaatar Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) UlaanbaatarNorth Korea Standard Time | (UTC+08:30) PyongyangAus Central W. Standard Time | (UTC+08:45) EuclaTransbaikal Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) ChitaTokyo Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) Osaka, Sapporo, TokyoKorea Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) SeoulYakutsk Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) YakutskCen. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+09:30) AdelaideAUS Central Standard Time | (UTC+09:30) DarwinE. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) BrisbaneAUS Eastern Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) Canberra, Melbourne, SydneyWest Pacific Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) Guam, Port MoresbyTasmania Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) HobartVladivostok Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) VladivostokLord Howe Standard Time | (UTC+10:30) Lord Howe IslandBougainville Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) Bougainville IslandRussia Time Zone 10 | (UTC+11:00) ChokurdakhMagadan Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) MagadanNorfolk Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) Norfolk IslandSakhalin Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) SakhalinCentral Pacific Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) Solomon Is., New CaledoniaRussia Time Zone 11 | (UTC+12:00) Anadyr, Petropavlovsk-KamchatskyNew Zealand Standard Time | (UTC+12:00) Auckland, WellingtonUTC+12 | (UTC+12:00) Coordinated Universal Time+12Fiji Standard Time | (UTC+12:00) FijiKamchatka Standard Time | (UTC+12:00) Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - OldChatham Islands Standard Time | (UTC+12:45) Chatham IslandsUTC+13 | (UTC+13:00) Coordinated Universal Time+13Tonga Standard Time | (UTC+13:00) Nuku'alofaSamoa Standard Time | (UTC+13:00) SamoaLine Islands Standard Time | (UTC+14:00) Kiritimati Island

If you want to quickly find all available time zones (for example, with an UTC -6 offset), run the command:

tzutil /l | find /I "utc-06"

Change the current time zone to (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada):
tzutil /s "Eastern Standard Time"

The current time zone is stored in the Windows registry. You can check that it changed like this:
reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

To disable daylight saving time for a specific time zone, you must specify the time zone identifier with the suffix _dstoff, for example:

tzutil /s “Central European Standard Time_dstoff”

This command will change the computer’s time zone and disable the seasonal clock change.

You can display complete information about the time zone and daylight-saving time settings as follows:

w32tm /tz

Time zone: Current:TIME_ZONE_ID_UNKNOWN Bias: 480min (UTC=LocalTime+Bias)[Standard Name:"Pacific Standard Time" Bias:0min Date:(unspecified)][Daylight Name:"Pacific Standard Time" Bias:0min Date:(unspecified)]

Setting Windows Time Zone via PowerShell

You can get the current time zone settings from the PowerShell console. Run the command:


[TimeZoneInfo]::Local

Or

Get-TimeZone

Id : Pacific Standard Time
DisplayName : (UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
StandardName : Pacific Standard Time
DaylightName : Pacific Standard Time
BaseUtcOffset : -08:00:00
SupportsDaylightSavingTime : False

To view all the time zones available in Windows, you can use the PowerShell command:

[System.TimeZoneInfo]::GetSystemTimeZones()
or
Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable

The list of time zones is quite long. To find the name of the required time zone, use the PowerShell filtering options:

Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable | Where-Object {$_.displayname -like "*canada*"}

or:

Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable | Where-Object {$_.Id -like "*euro*"}

You can list all time zones in alphabetical order:

Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable | Select Id | Sort Id

To change the current time zone from PowerShell, run the command

Set-TimeZone -Name "US Eastern Standard Time"

Configuring the Time Zone Using the Group Policy

You can use Group Policy to configure time zone on computers in an Active Directory domain. There are no built-in policy parameters in the GPO for configuring the time zone. The two most commonly used options for setting the time zone through the GPO are using the GPO logon script or by importing the time zone settings into the registry.

To set the time zone using a GPO logon script, you can use a simple PowerShell script (it works for all versions of Windows starting from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003):

$timeZone = "Central Europe Daylight Time"
$WinOSVerReg = Get-Item "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion"
$WinOSVer = $WinOSVerReg.GetValue("CurrentVersion")
if ($WinOSVer -GE 6){
tzutil.exe /s $timeZone
} Else {
$params = "/c Start `"Change timeZone`" /MIN %WINDIR%\System32\Control.exe TIMEDATE.CPL,,/Z "
$params += $timeZone
$proc = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start( "CMD.exe", $params )
}

Another way to set the time zone for domain-joined computers is to import the contents of the HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation registry key from the reference computer with the properly configured time settings to other computers via GPO. This article describes how to import the registry parameters via Group Policy.

Select this registry key with all the parameters using the Registry Browser. As a result, all time zone settings will be imported into the GPO editor (Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Registry).

If you want to use different time zone settings for different Active Directory sites, use the GPP Item Level Targeting to target the specific time zone settings to the AD site.

If you are using an RDS infrastructure, and the users and RDSH servers are configured with different time zones, then the server time will be displayed in the user’s RDP sessions. It is not convenient. You can redirect the user’s local time zone to an RDP session using the Allow time zone redirection GPO parameter (Computer Configuration > Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host -> Device and Resource Redirection.

Can’t Change Time Zone on Windows Server 2019 /Windows 10: You Do Not Have Permission

Windows Server 2019 RTM and some Windows 10 builds contain an annoying error with the time zone setting through the GUI. If you try to change the time zone from the modern Settings app or via the classic Control Panel applet, an error appears:

Date and timeUnable to continue.You do not have permission to perform this task. Please contact your computer administrator for help.

First, make sure that you are login Windows under an account with administrator privileges and that the Administrators group is present in the Change Time Zone local security policy settings.

As a workaround, in this case, you will have to change the timezone from the command line:

tzutil /l
tzutil /s "Central Europe Standard Time"

or PowerShell:

GetTimeZone -ListAvailable|? DisplayName -like "*Berlin*"|Set-TimeZone

If you want to change the time zone setting from the graphical interface, you need to tun the timedate.cpl applet from the elevated command prompt or open it from the Server Manager (Local Server -> Time zone).