Your MicrosoftWindows regional settings will influence how your date/time, numeric, and currency data types appear when you apply formatting options. Windows supports a variety of languages, plus currency and date/time formats for the countries/regions that use those languages.
For example, you might use forward slashes to enter a date value for a Date/Time field (for example, 11/19/2023), but when you apply the General Date display format, it may or may not display the forward slashes, depending on the regional settings for Windows.
This principle also applies to numeric and financial data. You can enter currency amounts that use the English pound symbol (£), but Access may display those values in euros, because that is the currency symbol selected for Windows.
The following procedure shows you how to change the Windows regional settings for your computer.
Change the regional settings
To change regional settings, follow the steps described for your computer's operating system.
Change the regional format
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Open Settings (press Windows key + I, or click Start and then click Settings).
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Click Time & language, and then click Language & region.
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Under Regional format, select the format that matches your country/region from the drop-down list. This controls the default date, time, number, and currency formats used by Access.
Customize individual format settings (decimal separator, date order, currency symbol, etc.)
For more detailed customization, you need to open the classic Region dialog:
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In the same Language & region page, scroll down to Related settings and click Administrative language settings.
The classic Region dialog box appears.
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On the Formats tab, click the Additional settings button.
The Customize Format dialog box appears.
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Click the tab that contains the settings that you want to modify, and make your changes. For example, to change the decimal separator or digit grouping symbol, click the Numbers tab. To change the date order (such as dd/mm/yyyy vs. mm/dd/yyyy), click the Date tab.
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Click OK to close the Customize Format dialog, and then click OK to close the Region dialog.
Tip:Â You can also open the classic Region dialog directly by pressing Windows key + R, typing intl.cpl, and pressing Enter.
Note:Â After changing regional settings, you may need to close and reopen your Access database for the changes to take effect.
Change the regional format
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Open Settings (press Windows key + I, or click Start and then click Settings).
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Click Time & Language, and then click Region.
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Under Regional format, select the format that matches your country/region from the drop-down list.
Customize individual format settings (decimal separator, date order, currency symbol, etc.)
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On the same Region page in Settings, click Additional date, time, & regional settings under Related settings.
The Clock and Region page in Control Panel appears.
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Click Change date, time, or number formats.
The Region dialog box appears.
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On the Formats tab, click the Additional settings button.
The Customize Format dialog box appears.
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Click the tab that contains the settings that you want to modify, and make your changes. For example, to change the decimal separator or digit grouping symbol, click the Numbers tab. To change the date order, click the Date tab.
Tip:Â You can also open the Region dialog directly by pressing Windows key + R, typing intl.cpl, and pressing Enter.
