OS X Lion login screen clock format

It seems launching again

/System/Library/CoreServices/Language Chooser.app

could help solving this problem.

Give it a try 🙂

Don't you just have to active the 24hour format to your whole mac? (You probably also have the 12 hour clock AM/PM in iCal). To do this, simply follow these steps:

-> System Preferences

-> Language & Text

-> Formats

-> 'Times' click the 'Customize' button

-> Now simply click on all the 'hour' elements in the short/medium/long and full windows and set them to 00-23. Also remove AM and PM from the tiles and from the bottem input window.

Hit OK, reboot, and this should do the trick.

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EDIT: Whoh.. it actually doesn't work. Tried to delete this post but cannot find the delete button. Sorry for the inconvenience

Message was edited by: TH_Architecture

The time format is set to 24:00 by the choice of the region.

The 24:00 format is shown everywhere —on the menu bar, on Numbers time cells, on iCal— except on the welcome screen.

I've obviously checked the basic solutions before raising the question.

Summarising the solutions gives three steps:

Launch Terminal and type

sudo su

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale "fr_FR"

defaults write /var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale "fr_FR"

Launch

/System/Library/CoreServices/Language Chooser.app

and select your language

Reboot.

I guess this is a minor bug to be fixed in next release of Lion.

Just to summarize, and after having actually checked which of the suggested solutions work and which don't, here is my verdict.

The solution to use the Langauge Chooser application

open -a /System/Library/CoreServices/Language Chooser.app

has no use for those using English, since the application only allows US English, with a 12-hour clock. Even though the majority of the world uses 24-hour clock, that's the default, and there is no separate UK English (with 24-hour clock).

The terminal command:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_GB

does change the clock on the login screen to 24-hour clock but not the clock on the lock screen.

Finally, the terminal command:

defaults write /var/root/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_GB

changes the clock on the lock screen also to 24-hour. One would expect though that this would be controlled by the user setting in the "Language & Text" preference pane.

You need to activate the root user in Directory Utility (/System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility.app) via the Edit menu. In System Preferences > Users & Groups > Options, set the logon type to "name & password".

Now, log in as root. Then, change your time format and other things like you normally would. Now, when you are back at the logon screen, you should have the desired format.

This does work but if I am norwegian, I had to choose "no_NB" instead your language "fr_FR" on OS X Mountain Lion 🙂

I just did this which worked for me on Mountain Lion, which is a copy from the .GlobalPreferences in my user account.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUTimeFormatStrings -dict '3' "HH:mm:ss z" '1' "HH:mm" '4' "HH:mm:ss v" '2' "HH:mm:ss"

After trying all relevant tactics above, this was the only one that worked for the lock screen.

I'm not sure everyone in this thread are discussing the same thing: the lock screen and login screen are two different things and demand different approaches.

EDIT: Oh, and its a good advice to disable the root user after done using it.