Why disabling changing the time zone does not work?

Question

I have a computer which is used by several users. I would like to disable for these users the option of changing the time zone the system uses.

I found a way how to do this, there's many articles online always describing the same approach of disabling this option via Local Security Policy. One of such articles showing the approach I am using is here:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/129765-allow-prevent-users-groups-change-time-zone-windows-10-a.html#option2

This approach however does not work for me.

When I disable this option via the Local Security Policy editor (by removing the "Users" group in the "Change the time zone" policy), at first everything works as expected. However, after a couple of days the setting of this policy reverts back and the "Users" can suddenly change the time zone again.

I have no idea what is causing the reverting. I tried to research online first of course, I found some tips, what I observed that is not the cause:

1. restarting the system (during the first couple of days a restart of the system does not result in the "Users" being able to change the time zone)
2. windows update (I paused all the updates in Settings/Update & Security/Windows Update, this also did not work)
3. I don't think there are any conflicting policies (I use the Local Security Policy for two things only. One is disabling the time zone change, another one is blocking running a couple of exe files as described here:

https://appuals.com/prevent-users-from-running-specified-windows-applications/ I am definitely not blocking anything that would be related to system time zones. What's also interesting is that the setting of this policy does not change after a couple of days, only the setting of the time zone policy changes.)

4. I am not using any non standard software, so I would say that this is also not a problem.

(I also found some other solutions, but they seem to be relevant rather to network administrators than me as a user of just a single personal machine.)

What I should also note is that I observed this behavior on two different computers of mine, one with Windows 10 as the operating system, and the other one uses Windows 11.

Somebody could help me in figuring out what could cause this time zone policy reverting? I would be very grateful!

Answer 1

There is another method.

This method requires downloading the ntrights.exe tool, which is part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. Download it from a trusted source and unblock the downloaded file.

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt (search for "Command Prompt", right-click and select "Run as administrator").
2. Type the following command (replace "username" with the actual username or group name):

• To prevent a user/group from changing time zone:

ntrights -u "username" -r SeTimeZonePrivilege

• Remember to use quotes if there are spaces in the username or group name.