If your organization is spread across multiple countries where you have laptops and desktops managed by Microsoft Intune. You may have the requirement to configure the time zone w.r.t. each country on the devices ensuring to make sure all your devices are synchronized and displaying the correct local time.
You can group your devices in an Azure AD dynamic security group based on the Country and target the security groups to configure time zone information.
Steps to Configure Time zone on Windows devices using Intune
You can create a device configuration profile from Intune admin center to configure time zone on target devices. Please follow below steps for the same:
- Login on Microsoft Intune admin center
- Go to Devices > Configuration profiles > + Create profile
- Select Platform as Windows 10 and later
- Profile type as Settings Catalog
Basics
- Provide a Name of the profile: Configure Time Zone for MDM Devices
- Description: This profile will set time zone information on devices.
Configuration Settings
- Click on + Add settings
- Search for time zone in Settings picker
- Select / check the box “Configure Time Zone“
- Provide Time Zone ID value in the Text box. For Example: “Mountain Standard Time“.
Assignments
You can create an Azure AD dynamic security group to group the devices based on the country and create separate Device configuration profiles, one for each country. You can then target the Azure AD security group to set time zone for all the devices.
If you just have one time zone to configure across all your Intune MDM devices, Then you also click on + Add all devices to target all devices which are enrolled into Intune.
Review + Create
On Review + Create tab, review the device configuration profile and click on Create. As soon as you click on create button, The device configuration profile will be created and process to apply “Configure Time Zone for MDM Devices” policy will begin on the targeted devices.
Intune Policy Refresh Cycle
The Device will Sync / Check in to start deployment of this new device configuration profile. It may take some time for the process to start. Therefore, if you are testing it on a test device, you can force initiate Intune refresh cycle on the device which will speed up the download and installation process. You can also use Powershell to force initiate Intune refresh cycle.
Also, you can restart the device first which also starts the device check-in process. Manual sync is not mandatory on user’s devices as the device check-in process happens automatically. But if you are testing the config on a test device then this can speed up your testing and can save some time.
End user Experience
Previously the device on which I had targetted this policy had GMT Standard Time. But after applying a policy to set the time zone to all devices to “Mountain Standard Time“. The device now shows the new time zone set to Mountain Standard Time.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
How to find the Time Zone ID of any country
We would require Time Zone ID information of the country to be configured on the devices via Intune. There are multiple ways to find the time zone ID information. Please find below information with examples:
1. Using Windows time zone utility (tzutil.exe)
Windows Time zone utility is a small program called tzutil.exe which exists at C:\WINDOWS\system32\tzutil.exe location. This small utility is built in and available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.
To check the time zone Id of your device using tzutil.exe command, Please use below steps:
- Go to Start > search for Command Prompt.
- On the Command prompt window type
tzutil /g - This will provide current time zone ID which is set on your device.
- To find Time zone Id for any country use the command
tzutil /l.
- tzutil /l command will output data for each country therefore you can also pipe this command to
moreand limit the data on the screen. You can press Enter on the keyboard to show the rest of the data.
- As you can see the information displayed on the command prompt screen. We are Interested in time zone ID which is for example: “Pacific Standard Time (Mexico)“, “Hawaiian Standard Time“, Alaskan Standard Time” etc.
2. Using Powershell to find Time Zone ID
You can also use powershell cmdlet’s to find Time Zone ID information on your device and also for any country. You can use the cmdlet Get-Timezone cmdlet to retrieve this information.
Get-Timezone
get-timezone -ListAvailable | ft DisplayName, Id
3. Using Registry Editor to find Time zone ID
You can also use registry editor in Windows to find Time zone ID information of your device only. Let’s check for the Key information and locate its value.
- Go to Start > Search for Registry Editor.
- Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation - On the right hand side locate
TimeZoneKeyNameregistry entry and find its value which represents Time zone ID that is currently set on your device.
4. Using Microsoft documentation (TimeZones)
I would say the easier way to find Time Zone ID information of any contry is to use the Link TimeZone and check the table which provides this information. You can save this page in bookmark for quicker access to it later on.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have seen how to find time zone Id on your device and for any country using various methods. We have used that information to configure device configuration profile and set the time zone on all our organization Intune managed devices.