Windows 7 system tray date display not appearing

Make sure you have not changed your taskbar to use small icons only. This removes the date from the taskbar and only shows the time.

• Right Click Taskbar
• Properties
• Use small icons

Win7 Pro used to show the month, then it disappeared. I now suspect that must have been back in July (short name). Now, it's November and with the taskbar too narrow (if vertical and left-aligned) may still show the time but, no day or date. All other suggestions I could find didn't mention this. I finally figured it out. Only took me FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!!! So, I'm passing it on to save some time for all you - okay, the other - vertical and left-aligned taskbar freak out there (if there is another one).

Wow, I figured it out...

So, by default in Windows 7 US editions, short dates in the taskbar are displayed as MM/DD/YYYY. This works OK until 10/1/2013, when the taskbar does not have enough room anymore (the month was only one digit before with 9) at which point the date disappears!

To fix this, you can set the short date to a format like MM/DD/YY with these instructions: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4194/windows-7-customize-how-the-date-is-displayed-in-the-system-tray/