How to Change Your Computer's Date and Time Using Command Prompt

Turn off automatic date and time

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Understand why this step is necessary. Although you can change the date and time on your computer using Command Prompt while automatic date and time are active, the computer will eventually reset the date and time to match the current date and time.

In some cases, the computer will automatically reset the time and date as soon as you close the Command Prompt.

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Open Start . Click the Windows logo in the lower left corner of the screen.

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Open Settings. Click the gear icon in the lower left corner of the Start window. The Settings window will appear.

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Click Time & Language . This option is in the middle of the Settings window.

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Click Date & time . This tab is located in the upper left of the window.

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Click the blue "Set time automatically" switch. The switch will turn gray, so Windows will no longer automatically set the date and time. At this point, you can freely change your computer's date and time in Command Prompt.

Change date and time

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Open Start . Click the Windows logo in the upper left corner of the screen. The Start menu will pop up.

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Find Command Prompt. Type command prompt, then wait for Command Prompt to appear at the top of the Start menu.

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Right-click Command Prompt at the top of the Start menu. A menu will drop down.

If the mouse you're using doesn't have a right mouse button, click the right side of the mouse or click with two fingers.

If your computer uses a trackpad instead of a mouse, press down on the trackpad with two fingers, or tap the bottom right of the trackpad.

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Click Run as administrator . This option is in the drop-down menu.

You must have administrator access to change the date and time on your computer.

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Click Yes when prompted to confirm that you want to open Command Prompt. The Command Prompt window will appear at this time.

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Change time. The command to change the time in Command Prompt is time HH:MM:SS AM/PM, where "HH:MM:SS" represents hours, minutes and seconds, and "AM/PM" is morning or evening time. To change the time on your computer, you need to enter the parameters into this command and then press ↵ Enter.

For example, if you type time 08:35:00 AMand press ↵ Enter, the time on your computer will change to 8:35 AM.

To change the time to 10:00 PM, enter time 10:00:00 PMand press ↵ Enter.

If you prefer to use 24-hour time, you can enter the desired hour (for example, 14:00:00in place of 2:00 PM), then enter the "AM" or "PM" tag.

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Change date. The date format you need to use in Command Prompt will depend on the country, but Command Prompt will display the format: type dateand press ↵ Enter, then enter the date you want to use in the format specified by Command Prompt ( for example: "dd-mm-yyyy" in Vietnam) and press ↵ Enter.

To change the date on your US computer to September 25, 2018, type dateand tap ↵ Enter, then type 09-25-2018and tap ↵ Enter.

If you want to adjust the date to October 12, 2018 on your computer in Vietnamese format, enter dateand press ↵ Enter, then enter 12-10-2018.

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Review the date and time on your computer. In the lower right corner of the screen, you'll see the updated date and time reflecting the current country's format.

If you use 24-hour time, the "AM" or "PM" tag will not appear here.

Lesley Montoya

Update 19 June 2024