Tip 710: Outlook and date formatting

I received this complaint yesterday:

The biggest issue I have with Outlook is that the meeting requests don't show the DAY! What stupidity. Every single meeting request I get – I have to click on the calendar button to see what day of the week it is for. How many years have people been doing this for every meeting request without someone fixing it?

I’m not sure where this person is looking where he sees only the date and not the day of the week, but it’s probably not Outlook that needs fixing. See… I have the day of the week in my meeting invitations:

Outlook gets the date format from the long date setting in Windows. (There might be a date field or two where Outlook doesn’t use the date formats defined in Windows, but I don’t recall any offhand.)

To change the date format, go to Control panel, Regional and Language Settings, then click the Customize button beside your language on the first tab (Windows XP). The steps are similar in Vista and Windows 7.

Published February 10, 2010. Last updated on July 27, 2012.