We encountered an error when changing the time zone on our Windows Server, saying we don’t have permission to continue. If an administrator has not given standard users the privilege to change the time zone, then, you will not be able to do so. However, in some scenarios, even the account with administrative privilege fails to change the time zone. In this post, we will discuss what to do when Windows Server is unable to change the time zone.
Date and Time
Unable to continue
You do not have permission to perform this task.
Please contact your computer administrator for help.
Windows Server Time Zone You do not have permission
You will mostly get You do not have permission if the admin has restricted you from making any changes to the date and time of your system. Even if you log in with the admin account, that particular task will not run with admin access. We have discussed this issue in detail along with all the potential solutions.
Fix Windows Server unable to change the time zone
If Windows Server is unable to change the time zone, and you see Unable to continue, You do not have permission to perform this task error message, follow the solutions mentioned below.
- Retry with an account with admin access
- Give the user the privilege to change the time zone
- Run timedate.cpl as an administrator
- Change the time using the tzutil command
- Use the Set-TimeZone command
Let us discuss them in detail.
1] Retry with an account with admin access
As mentioned earlier, your admin can restrict your account from changing the time zone, so we recommend you retry doing the same with an account that has admin privileges. It’s not given that this will work, as this error message appears sometimes even with an admin account. In that case, you can move on to the next solution.
2] Give the user the privilege to change the time zone
If you are able to change the time zone with the admin account, you are lucky as you are not facing any issues, it’s just that, your organization doesn’t allow standard users to change the time zone. However, if you are a server admin and want to allow a standard user to alter the time zone, you can follow the steps mentioned below.
- Open the Local Security Policy on the server by searching it out of the Start Menu.
- Now, navigate to Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment.
- Scroll and look for the Change time zone policy.
- Double-click on it to open and then click on Add Users or Group.
- Click on Object types, tick Groups from Object types, and then click on Ok.
- Then, in the Enter the object names to select field, enter the word Users and click OK on the rest of the boxes until they go away.
- Click on Apply > Ok.
After making the aforementioned changes, you can close the window and then restart your machine. Once done, check if the issue is resolved.
3] Run timedate.cpl as an administrator
When we tried changing the timezone from the Control Panel, we encountered the error in question. So, ideally, we went to Settings, but even then we received an error forbidding us from making the changes. What’s happening here is that even though the account has admin privilege, the option to change the date and time is not opening as an admin. So, you need to hit Win + S, type “timedate.cpl”, right-click on the entry, and select Run as administrator, alternatively, click on the Run as administration option that’s on the right section. Click Yes when the UAC prompt appears and then change the time zone. Hopefully, it will do the trick for you.
4] Change the time using the tzutil command
The tzutil command in Windows is a utility used to manage and configure the system time zone. It stands for “Time Zone Utility” and allows users to display, set, and list time zones via the command line. If you cannot change the timezone using the method mentioned earlier, try this alternative. To do so, open the Command Prompt as an administrator.
Now, run the following command to check out all the time zones available for you.
tzutil /lOnce you have the list of time zones, you can note down the name of the time zone you want to select and then run the following command.
tzutil /s "India Standard Time"
You need to replace “India Standard Time” with the correct time zone ID as per your preference.
5] Use the Set-TimeZone command
Alternatively, you can use the Set-TimeZone command in PowerShell to set a time zone. To do so, open PowerShell as an administrator and then run the following command.
Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable
This will give you a list of all the available time zones. However, if you want to narrow down your search, you can use the pipeline (|) to add the filter. So, the command would look something like Get-TimeZone -ListAvailable | where StandardName -like “*Ind*”, you can replace “Ind” with your country name.
Then, run the following command to set the time zone.
Set-TimeZone -Name "ID"
Replace “ID”, with the ID of your time zone, so, in my case, the command will be Set-TimeZone -Name "India Standard Time".
That’s it!
Read: Fix Windows Clock Time is wrong
How do I change the timezone on a Windows server?
To change the timezone on a Windows Server, you can open Run, then type "ms-settings:dateandtime", and then hit OK. Now, this will open a window allowing you to change the date and time along with the timezone of your server.
Read: Windows Time Service not working; Time Synchronization fails
Windows Server change time zone greyed out
Windows will not pick your time zone automatically and the option will be greyed out if the local service is disabled. To enable it, open Settings, and go to Privacy & security > App permissions. Then turn on Location services. You can check our post to know what to do if the Set time zone automatically is greyed out.
Also Read: Prevent Users from Changing the Date and Time in Windows.
