Looking for date-time default formats OS X 10.8 & earlier

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Looking for date-time default formats OS X 10.8 & earlier

I use Quicken for Mac 2007 (Intel) on my iMac and works well. But, on my Mac Mini it shows dates in US (M/DY) format instead of the system default D/M/Y.

Both my iMac and Mac Mini are running OS X 10.10.4. However, the iMac first ran OS X 10.6 and has been incrementally upgraded since while the Mac Mini started with OS X 10.9.

There must be something different about my two Macs which explains why Quicken gets date formats right on one but not the other.

Could there be an old plist file somewhere ?

OS X has default date-time formats according to locale. So, if region is set to US, dates are in M/D/Y format by default. If set to Australia, they default to D/M/Y format.

I have looked at all the preferences files but, I can't find where those defaults are stored. I have checked all the files in Library/Preferences and in Home/Library/Preferences. I have especially checked the hidden file ".GlobalPreferences.plist" in both folders. I've found that customised date-time formats are stored in Home/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist - suggesting that customisations are on a per user basis. But, both Macs are set to the defaults.

But, if there are no customisations, date-time formats don't seem to be stored anywhere. So, where would applications look to find them ?

I believe that something in date-time handling changed with OS X 10.9. So, I need to know how applications used to find default date-time formats in OS X 10.8 and earlier. Does anyone know ?

Thanks.

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), mid-2011, Core i7, 2.7Ghz, 8Gb

Posted on Aug 4, 2015 9:40 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 30, 2015 3:46 PM in response to Garry Brooke

I have a similar issue with an older version or MYOB AccountEdge (11.6.1c).

On my laptop (which has been incrementally upgraded from OS X 10.9 -> 10.10 -> 10.11 MYOB is stuck (correctly for me) to AU date format (dd/mm/yyy) but on my new iMac (only ever 10.11) MYOB is set only to mm/dd/yyyy. I have done the following:

- Installed a VM with 10.10 and set it up as dd/mm/yyyy

- Installed AccountingEdge

- Verified the date format is dd/mm/yyyy

If I switch the format to mm/dd/yyyy, restart etc. the format does not change - it's stuck on dd/mm/yyyy so as you say, it looks like OSX is making a legacy setting somewhere. With this verified as working (well enough for me) I upgraded the VM to 10.11 and the date format is still correct (for me) as dd/mm/yyyy

SO... my next step is to get a set of the 2 file systems and see if I can work out where this is stored. I'm highly motivated to get this fixed as I don't want to upgrade software that is doing the job well enough. I'm also going to check out the .plist files Gary mentions. I'll post back here if I solve this.

James

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