.NET (3.5) formats times using dots instead of colons as TimeSeparator for it-IT culture?

According to Wikipedia (and confirmed in an answer by Dario Solera), in Italy they format times using colons:

The 24-hour notation is used in writing with a colon as a separator. Example: 14:05. The minutes are written with two digits; the hour numbers can be written with or without leading zero.

However, running the following code seems to output dots:

using System.Globalization;

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new CultureInfo("it-IT");
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("it-IT");
// Outputs "11.08"
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString());

// Outputs "."
Console.WriteLine(new CultureInfo("it-IT").DateTimeFormat.TimeSeparator);

Is this a framework bug? What's the best way to "fix" it? TimeSeparator is settable - should we just overwrite it before assigning to Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture etc.?

I can guarantee in Italy we use colons to separate hour and minute digits, and we use the 24-hour format. Wikipedia is correct (at least this time).

Your problem is likely that you're not setting the Thread's UI culture. Something like this should work:

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("it-IT");

This seems to be a .NET 3.5 issue. In .NET 4.0 the code you posted uses a colon as expected. Seems like a strange breaking change between the framework versions, but seems like upgrading to .NET 4 will solve the problem.

The hours/minutes separator (TimeSeparator) in Italy seems to be a ., not a :.

You are specifically formatting for the Italian culture, so it follows that this is what will be used.

In a DateTime format string, the : is a place holder for this separator - if the culture defines . or , or anything else as the separator, that's what will be substituted when formatting the DateTime with that culture.