How to restore the full date and time format on Windows 11's taskbar
Microsoft rolled out a change recently on Windows 11 that removed some bits of information from the taskbar. For the date, only day and month are shown, while the year has been removed. For the time, only the hour and minute is shown. Information such as AM or PM has also been removed.
Microsoft says this was done to free up space on the taskbar. While some users may like the change, as it gives them more room for other icons and information on the taskbar, others may dislike it.
Good news is that Microsoft added a new preference as well that allows users who do not like the change to restore the classic behavior.
Tip: You can hover with the mouse cursor over date and time to get a small popup with the full information.
How to restore the full date and time on Windows 11
Here is a step-by-step guide to restore the classic taskbar behavior:
- Right-click on date and time on the taskbar.
- Select "adjust date and time". You can also open Settings > Time & language > Date & time manually instead.
- Expand "Show time and date in the System tray" by clicking on the down-arrow icon.
- Uncheck "Show abbreviated time and date".
The change is immediate. You should see the full date and time again on the taskbar.
Using the Registry
Administrators may modify the Registry to restore the classic display of date and time on Windows 11's taskbar.
- Open the Start menu.
- Type regedit and press the Enter-key.
- Confirm the security prompt that is displayed.
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
- Check if ShowShortenedDateTime exists on the right.
- If it does, go to step 6.
- If it does not, do the following:
- Right-click on Advanced.
- Select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.
- Name it ShowShortenedDateTime.
- Double-click on ShowShortenedDateTime.
- Set its value to 0.
- Restart the PC.
Tip: To restore the default, delete the key ShowShortenedDateTime, or set its value to 1.
Using the Group Policy Editor
Note: the Group Policy Editor is only available in Pro, Enterprise, Workstation, or Education versions of Windows 11. Home users may want to use the Registry directly to make the change, as described above.
- Open the Start menu.
- Type gpedit.msc and press the Enter-key.
- Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar.
- Double-click on "Turn off abbreviated time and date format".
- Change the value from "Not configured" to "Enabled".
- Click on ok.
- Close the Group Policy Editor.
- Restart the PC.
Closing Words
There you have it. It takes just a few clicks to restore the full date and time format on the taskbar on Windows 11 devices.
Now it is your turn. Do you like the new format? Or do you prefer the old? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
It’s almost like they don’t use Windows 11 over at Microsoft, otherwise they’d realize what a shitshow it is. And this is a prefect example.
They heisted the Mac taskbar ignoring that on Mac it also has a top of screen menu bar with time and date and much else. And it’s not that Mac’s design is great, it isn’t, just making that observation.
But here’s where the stupid comes in: why not make changing it a right-click option on the date/time display itself? 100% doable.
Fundamentally, though, Windows 11 continues to shine as the worst version of Windows in basically every way.
Don’t worry about the blown engine or flat tires, we are going to polish the hood emblem ’till it shines!
/facepalm
W11 is the worst crap ever done. Absolute fiasco with the worst start menu and the worst taskbar ever done. Even the worst Linux distros have better taskbars than W11. Useless development team, useless CEO, useless everything.
Yes, ever since I tried Linux, I’ve been amazed by how customizable it is, you can rearrange the whole taskbar and put whatever elements you want on it. But since Windows 8, Windows has become a lot more limited and they continue to limit is even further. I moved to Linux and I don’t think I will use Windows ever again. It’s so freeing and nice to know you control the OS on your computer and not the other way around and you don’t have to put up with all the garbage that comes and live with the anxiety of how it will keep getting worse and not knowing how or will you be able to mitigate it at all.
I still remember how good XP and 7 were, I don’t know what changed, but since then a lot of things seems to have changed for the worse – movies, TV series, games, etc. Everything has gotten worse and some people are unhappy about it while others try to do mental gymnastics that it’s still fine. I just don’t know how it went this way. XP and 7 gave the impression of progress, like things were improving and about to keep getting better, then suddenly Windows 8 hits and it feels like things went backwards so hard.
Anyone who is OK with Windows 8, 10 and 11 is delusional.
https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Microsoft/DesktopDigitalClock/History additionally shows seconds with no AM or PM if your system default time is set to 24 hour. This makes it easy to make a font change you prefer.
What I have been waiting for — for a long time now — is for MS to bring back the option to reduce the height of the taskbar. When I launch it, it lies on top of all sorts of other things.
Please MS, do useful things to the taskbar.
And please MS, when you make a change, leave the the previous situation as default, not the new situation.
Is the taskbar hover option still available?
I prefer it to the taskbar always displayed, and am now using hover very happily after moving to – yes – Linux!
Instead of working on what’s vital, everyone at Microsoft is just searching for some meaningless nonsense to do. Who asked for this while small taskbar is still missing?
I want to see the seconds. There are dozens of advantages having enabled the seconds, and ee all kniw about it.
I dono’t care much either way and wonder who at Microsoft was so concerned about addressing this? I think once you forget what year it is, or whether its morning or afternoon. Maybe its time to step away from the PC for a bit.
You can’t forget if it’s morning or afternoon if you have a 24 hour clock. Countries where the standard is a 12 hour clock are just backwards. I don’t want to even begin about the imperial measurement system, which is also a huge mess.
This wouldn’t be an issue if MS hadn’t removed the vertical side taskbar option. I could display all the icons from the large number of utilities and stack visible open windows where now on the bottom I can’t see utility status except on a few. 11 sucks but I need it for audio tools. I’m regretting it more and more since I bought this new Dell.
Microsoft was in the right, you don’t really need the year nor AM/PM to be visible. There are many opportunities for you to know what year it is and whether it’s before noon or after noon is as simple as taking a look outside, it’s not like anyone lives in a bunker or spends their time deprived of the ability to tell what time of the day it is through looking at the sky.
I like it this way https://images2.imgbox.com/84/ec/lJlCOhyg_o.png Usually I remember what year it is.
https://i.ibb.co/cJcdQm2/image.png
This is how it looks for me on Linux Mint XFCE. The rest of the taskbar is like Windows XP.
https://i.ibb.co/dPTTgs9/image.png
I think the taskbar doesn’t need to be double in size for it to display hour, month, year. Everything in Windows feels so stupid and illogical. The taskbar, which I think they called “superbar” in Windows 7 was cool, but still too big, it didn’t have to double in size to display open windows in stacks, Linux Mint Cinnamon has a taskbar that behaves like Windows 7 and it’s not double in size.
The decisions that Microsoft makes with Windows are in my opinion very illogical and just keep getting worse. I don’t know how people put up with this garbage anymore. Luckily, I don’t use any specialized software that would require me to run Windows, but if I did, I would do it in a VM.
At this point, I’m sitting on the back row with popcorn and watching Microsoft slowly, but steadily destroy Windows to the point where it’s borderline unusable. I find it mind-boggling how they always update parts of the UI, usually the ones that are most visible and used by people on every major version, but underneath, the UI is the same since Windows 95 and there are still a lot of resources/assets that haven’t been updated. If they can update some things, but can’t update others despite being a multi-billion company, one of the top 10 in the world, it means they are incapable and not because of legacy code/restrictions, but because they just don’t care. And I don’t really want to rely on something as pivotal as an OS that is developed and operated by people who just don’t care.
Up until Windows 7 (included), the changes were all welcome, but after that something happened and it just kept getting worse. I still can’t forget the disappointment I experienced when I first installed Windows 8 – it looked so boring, backwards, even depressing. Flat colors, sharp corners… the whole UI looked like some placeholder asset that was meant to be refined or replaced, but never did. They even kept it the same in Windows 10 and it started that stupid fad of everyone copying them and making their UI flat, ugly and rectangular. A lot of 3rd party software that had beautiful UI, got updated to match that of Windows 8/10 and it got really ugly, they are still doing it. I used some products from the Wise line (Wise Program Uninstalled, Wise Disk Cleaner, Wise Registry Cleaner), and some of them are still not updated to match Windows 11, which still looks dull, but due to the rounded corners, it looks less ugly and depressing.
Many true words spoken, but the bottom line is that your right side of the taskbar is Cramped City Inferno. Looks horrible.
That may be so, but for me it does the job just fine. Until you pointed it out, it never looked bad or cramped to me. In fact, it looked a lot like how it was in Windows XP and I don’t remember people complaining about XP besides it slowing down over time, but that was because hardware at the time was weaker and slower so it required frequent reinstalls from scratch and that’s when the rise of 3rd party junk cleaners/optimizers began.
Right now if we install Windows XP on a semi-modern hardware from 2015 with 8-16GB of RAM and SSD, it will never slow down over time.
I wish Windows would get back to that look and philosophy, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen. Right now for me Windows has become a garbage ass piece of sh*t and I don’t see any redeeming value in it. I’d rather be stuck with Linux and not be able to play several games than look at Windows’ deformed UI every moment I’m in from of the PC and feel bad at my inability to make it how I want to be and feel nostalgic about the good old days.
Before I even tried installing Windows 7, but my CPU is i5 8400, and it doesn’t support Windows 7, the only people who forced it to install through bypasses have received unsatisfying results, like not having sound with no way to fix it or other things so I had two options:
A) stick with Windows 10/11 and deal with their crap
B) take a shot at running Linux
And Linux ran fine for me – got drivers and everything set up nice and dandy, my only issue used to be a monitor with a VGA port and it would not display my native resolution on Linux and it looked really blurry, but it was also blurry on Windows because VGA-to-HDMI apparently causes the picture to be blurry. So I went and bought a new monitor with an HDMI port so now I have my native resolution and no blurriness so all my issues are gone. I’ve been using Linux since Spring 2024 and I barely notice I’m using Linux anymore, sometimes I even forget it’s Linux and I just do my daily activities like normal.