OS X Lion login screen clock format

I would suspect that either the root user needs to also have the AppleLocale set to en_UK or your user account needs it set. How did you fix the clock on your user account in the first place? did you just force it by modifying the local settings through the control panel? or did you just set it UK local settings in the control panel?

Probably something in there. I would just keep fiddling around with the GlobalPerferences file until you get it fixed.

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

Hey,

You can fix this by doing the following (I'm assuming you have English set as the langauge).

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale "en_GB"

Hit return and reboot your computer and the clock on the login screen should be 24-hour format.

Cheers,

Kyle

Does anybody know if there is a way to specifically change the time format mask?

Any possibility of adding the date, too?

I also prefer the 24-hour clock format but my locale is not Great Britain, it's en_US, and I don't want my applications assuming that I should have everything set to the GB format.

Thanks,

-Daniel

Hi Kyle,

Sorry to say your fix does not work on my new iMac 27" with i7 CPU. The new value appears to be stored correctly in the .GlobalPreferences file when checking with defaults read AppleLocale but reboot does not change anything on the login screen.

Cheers,

VanPuffelen

Kyle, thank you. Your fix is working BUT... the value on Lock Screen (not Login Screen) is still with AM/PM. Do you know how to fix this part?

And does anybody know Apple aware about this issue?

Cheers, Kirill

This is what I typed in Terminal:

$ pwd /Users/steef $ sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale "en_NL" $ sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale en_NL $

After that I rebooted and checked whether the setting had been changed. It was not.

Hope this helps,

VanPuffelen

Well, the last time I checked English isn't an offical langauge of the Netherlands so it kind of makes sense.

I'm assuming that the 24-hour clock is the preferred clock of the Netherlands, so why not set the localization settings to the Netherlands? If you're Dutch it probably makes sense. So if you want the Netherland's Dutch setting use nl_NL.

I assumed that the combination of language and country was just to indicate which system language you preferred and which internationalization settings you wished and that these could be combined arbitrarely. When logged in I have my system language set to English but all formats for dates, times and numbers set to Netherlands. Because this is possible I would expect that this combination of settings would also be available on the login screen.

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.

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.

Tell me exactly what you did --- what did you type? From beginning to end.

Thanks,

Kyle