Windows 10: Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Windows 10

How to: Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Windows 10

How to Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Windows 10


Your PC's clock is used to record the time whenever you create or modify files on your PC. You can change the clock's time zone.

A time zone is a region that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries and their subdivisions because it is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time.

By default, accounts in the Administrators and, Users groups are able to change the time zone in Windows 10.

See also: Change the time zone - security policy setting (Windows 10) | Microsoft Docs

This tutorial will show you how to allow or prevent specific users and groups from being able to change the time zone in Windows 10.

*note You must be signed in as an administrator to allow or prevent users and groups to change the time zone.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: Allow Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Local Security Policy
• Option Two: Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Local Security Policy
• Option Three: Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Command Prompt

OPTION ONE [/i] Allow Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Local Security Policy
*note Local Security Policy is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

All editions can use Option Three below.
1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type secpol.msc into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Local Security Policy.

2. Expand open Local Policies in the left pane of Local Security Policy, click/tap on User Rights Assignment, and double click/tap on the Change the time zone policy in the right pane. (see screenshot below)



3. Click/tap on the Add User or Group button. (see screenshot below)



4. Click/tap on the Advanced button. (see screenshot below)



5. Click/tap on the Object Types button. (see screenshot below)



6. Check all the boxes for Object types, and click/tap on the OK. (see screenshot below)



7. Click/tap on the Find Now button, select the name of the user or group (ex: "Users") you want to add, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshots below)

*tip If you like, you can press and hold the Ctrl key to select more than one user and/or group.





8. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



9. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



10. When finished, you can close Local Users and Groups if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Local Security Policy
*note Local Security Policy is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

All editions can use Option Three below.
1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type secpol.msc into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Local Security Policy.

2. Expand open Local Policies in the left pane of Local Security Policy, click/tap on User Rights Assignment, and double click/tap on the Change the time zone policy in the right pane. (see screenshot below)



3. Select the user or group (ex: "Users") you want to remove, and click/tap on the Remove button. (see screenshot below)

*tip If you like, you can press and hold the Ctrl key to select more than one user and/or group.

*Warning Do not remove LOCAL SERVICE since this is used by Windows.



4. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



5. When finished, you can close Local Users and Groups if you like.





OPTION THREE [/i] Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time Zone in Command Prompt
1. If you haven't already, you will need to do the following below before continuing on to step 2 below.
A) Download the ntrights.exe file below from the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools.
Download
B) Save the ntrights.zip file to your desktop, and unblock it.

C) Open the ntrights.zip file, copy or move the ntrights.exe file into your C:\Windows\System32 folder, and click/tap on Continue to approve.
2. Open an elevated command prompt.

3. Type the command you want below into the elevated command prompt, and press Enter.
(Add user or group to allow)
*Arrow ntrights +r SeTimeZonePrivilege -u "User or Group"

OR

(Remove user or group to prevent)
*Arrow ntrights -r SeTimeZonePrivilege -u "User or Group"

*note Substitute User or Group in the command above with the actual name of the user or group (ex: "Users") you want to add or remove for this policy.

*Warning Do not remove LOCAL SERVICE since this is used by Windows.

For example: ntrights +r SeTimeZonePrivilege -u "Users"
4. When finished, you can close the elevated command prompt if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Add or Remove Users from Groups in Windows 10
• How to Change User Rights Assignment Security Policy Settings in Windows 10
• How to Change the Time Zone in Windows 10
• How to Restore Missing Default Time Zones in Windows 10
• How to Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Change Time in Windows 10

:)

 

Time Zones do not change

Hi Andre,

Thanks for taking the time to help. I appreciate it.

I opened the account on my computer which has Administrator Privileges and ran regedit.

In the first string you suggested, it was already set to NTP.

In the second string, I changed the value to 3, as instructed.

Regrettably, after the restart - the trouble is still present. The Time Zone is still stuck on the time zone of the place I started my trip from.

I opened Settings>Time and confirmed that the toggle is set to Automatically Detect/Change the Time Zone, but it clearly isn't working. Additionally, the place where it displays the Time Zone (which if you click on usually drops down a list where you can
select a new TZ) is grayed out and not longer drops down a list if you click upon it.

Also grayed out is the toggle allowing you to choose to ignore Daylight Savings.

Hmmm. Puzzling.

 

unable to change time zone.....

Hi,

Please provide the answers to the following for us to be able to learn more about the issue you're experiencing:

• Is your Windows 10 up-to-date?
  
• What are the changes made or the things you've done before the issue start?
  
• Were you able to change the time zone before without it being changed back?
  
• From where have you already tried changing the time zone setting?

Meanwhile, you can consider running the following scans to repair missing or corrupted system files:

• System File Checker
  
  System File Checker or SFC is a utility in Windows that allows users to scan for corruptions in Windows system files and restore these corrupted files.
  
• DISM or
  System Update Readiness tool
  
  DISM or Deployment Image Servicing and Management can fix component store corruption that prevents the SFC command from working properly.
  

If the scans above were successful and still the issue is present, can you create another administrator account and observe if the issue persists when you change the time zone from there? Here's a

link where you can check for the steps on how to create another administrator account.

You can also boot your PC into Safe Mode and check if you can change the time zone from there without being reverted back. Starting your PC in
Safe Mode can help you troubleshoot problems on your PC while using a limited set of files and drivers. Here's how to set your PC in
Safe Mode:

• Press the Windows + I key from the keyboard to launch
  Settings.
  
• Select Update & Security, then Recovery.
  
• Click the Restart now button under Advanced startup.
  
• Select Troubleshoot when you get into the Choose an option screen.
  
• Select Advanced options, then Startup Settings.
  
• Click Restart.
  
• Select 5 or F5 after your PC restarts to start your PC now in
  Safe Mode.
  

Let us know what happens after following the above mentioned troubleshooting steps.

Regards.

 

Windows 10 Time Zone tool?

Tested this once again and did exactly what the steps from above. After booting into Windows it did change to UTC from the list of time zones from the date and time properties.

The actual time however was still Pacific Time. But when I connected to the internet now the clock shows UTC.

I did a command SYSTEMINFO and under Original Install Date it still has the Pacific Time.

So yes, I can confirm that to show the exact correct time you need to connect to the internet or else it will not work. The only changes that do work when not connected is that the correct Time Zone setting (UTC) appeared on the date/time properties after doing the TZUTIL command during install. But the actual time was still reflected on Pacific Time.

 

TIME CHANGE AS IF YOU HAD NOT HEARD ABOUT WHERE IS THE FIX

Hi Daphne,

It seems that this is a common behavior in Windows 10 computers that are part of a domain or organization. When joining a domain, there can be changes made in the Group Policy causing some certain settings to be greyed out. Have you tried changing the time
through Control Panel? It might be a simple solution but it is something that some users miss out. Having said that, it is still something that I suggest you check out.

Here's how

• Go to Control Panel > Date and Time.
• Click Change date and time... and then pick the correct date and time.
• Click OK.

Another thing to try is to assign user permissions to change the date and time through Group Policy Editor.

Here are the steps:

• Press Windows+R, and then enter gpedit.msc.
• Navigate to Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment.
• Assign users to Group Policy Settings Change the system time and
  Change the time zone.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

How to Change the Time Zone in Windows 10

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:

Change Time Zone in Windows 10