Last year, Microsoft began testing a new change to the System Tray on the Taskbar on Windows 11 that aimed to clean up the area with a more simplified date and time layout. The new layout removed the AM/PM indicator, as well as the year from the date, leaving just the time, day, and month.
"We are trying out a more simplified system tray to highlight the date/time in a shortened form and to show the notifications bell icon based on DND status" said the Microsoft changelog when this feature was first put into testing back in 2024.
