How to Block Windows 10 Users from Changing the System Time Block all or certain users from adjusting the time

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Block all or certain users from adjusting the time

If you’re an IT administrator, you certainly know how important it is for standard users to be blocked from accessing critical system files and making changes to the computer.

While altering system configuration can have various effects on the stability of a machine, there are other smaller changes that users shouldn’t be allowed to make due to multiple reasons.

One of them is setting the system time, which in an enterprise environment, shouldn’t happen without the IT administrator specifically giving their approval.

However, on a Windows 10 system there are no features in the Settings app that would restrict access to system time. You can still do this, especially in an enterprise where Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise SKUs are being used, and as you’ll find below, it’s all just a matter of setting new policies.

A similar trick can be used on Windows 10 Home as well via the Windows Registry Editor, but in this case, another user with administrator rights can delete the policy at any moment. This means you should turn to this method only if the rest of the users sign into Windows with a standard account.

Method #1 – Group Policy Editor

The Group Policy Editor is the weapon that most IT pros turn to in order to set up policies for certain capabilities on a Windows 10 device.

Launch the app by typing Group Policy Editor or gpedit.msc in the Start menu or in the run dialog that you can open by pressing the Windows key + R.

At this point, there are two ways to go. You can either make changes to the entire system and save the new policy for all users, or you can enforce the restriction only on specific user accounts.

If you want the policy to cover the entire computer, you need to navigate to the following path:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Locale Services

On the other hand, if the policy should only restrict access to the system time for certain users, the path is the following:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Locale Services

No matter the option you choose, in the right pane you should look for a policy called:

Disallow user override of locale settings

By default, this policy is set to Not Configured, so you need to open it and switch it to Enabled. In case you’re picking option number two, so you want to set the policy only for specific accounts, you also need to choose the accounts in the Users tab.

Once you’ve made the changes, you can just close all windows and you’re good to go.

 

Method #2 – Using the Registry Editor

First of all, launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit.exe in the Start menu or in Windows key + R. Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Control Panel\International

With the International key select, right-click in the empty space on the right side of the screen and go to New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the new entry:

PreventUserOverrides

Depending on the value you set for PreventUserOverrides, user access to the system time is restricted or not. You can choose between value 0, which means the policy is disabled so users can make changes, and value 1, which enables the policy and restricts access to the system time.

If you want to lift the restriction at a later time, it’s enough to simply change the policy to value 0 or just delete it altogether. Rebooting the system will save your changes after modifying the value.

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