The Terminal Server Client (whether 16-bit or 32-bit) does not show the clock by default. The clock is turned off because screen updates occur every minute, resulting in network traffic.
If the clock is enabled on the Client, the Terminal Server computer will push a total frame of 113 bytes to the client. The client will acknowledge with a total frame of 60 bytes. Administrators wanting to enable the Taskbar clock function should factor an additional bandwidth usage of 173 bytes (1384 bits) for each minute for each client.
There’s a GPO setting:
User configuration – Administrative templates – Start Menu and Taskbar
“Remove Clock from the system notification area”
But disabling this setting will not force the clock to display in the system tray, it will only allow users to enable the clock if they have access to the system tray on the Terminal Server. And in most situations, they haven’t. To force the display of the clock in the taskbar, you will need to modify a setting in the registry.
Start regedit and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerStuckRects2
You’ll see a “Settings” value, which contains something like this:
28 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff 02 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 6d 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 03 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 04 00 00
The nineth pair of digits determines the Taskbar properties. Possible values are:
Always on top= 0×02
Auto hide= 0×01
Show small icons in Start menu= 0×04
Hide clock= 0×08
Combine the properties you want and set the byte. For example:
Always on top + Show small icons + Show clock = 06
Always on top + Show small icons + Hide clock = 0e
Note that the changes do not take effect immediately, you have to restart Explorer, or logoff and logon again to see the changes.
If you want to set this for all users, you’ll have to export the registry key into a .reg file and import it into the user profile in a logon script. Start the logon script in your GPO to make sure that it runs (and imports the registry file) before Explorer is started.