want formula bar date to be dd/mm/yyyy instead of mm/dd/yyyy.How?

[magna]

I am using Office 2000 for an existing file created in Excel 97. I have a
Date column which has entries in dd/mm/yyyy. In Excel 97 this was displayed
in the cell and the formula bar in above format.
In Office 2000, I observe that the formula bar now displays the date as
mm/dd/yyyy. I then clicked on a cell and changed its format to dd/mm/yyyy by
changing the setting to "English(Australia)" instead of "English(US)". This
only changed the cell display but not the formula bar (which was still in
mm/dd/yyyy format).
The problem is that when I input a date, 2 July as 2/7/2007 in the cell, the
formula bar shows this as 7/2/2007.
I want both the cell display and the formula bar display to be in dd/mm/yyyy
format. How can i achieve this?

 

[Kevin B]

Go to the Windows control panel and set the regional default date display.
The date format mask should look like dd/mm/yyyyy.

In Windows XP, click the START button, click Date, Tim, Language, and
Regional Options, then click the Change the Format of Numbers, Dates, and
Times. Click the Regional Options tab in the displayed dialog box and click
the Customize command button. Click the Date tab of the next dialog box and
change the short date format.

Click the OK command button and then click the Apply command button.

You'll probably have to save & close your excel file and then reopen to see
the change in your workbook.