Can't set Block units to anything but inches

In drawing settings even if I change the block setting to Millimetres it seems to stay as inches. So that when I set grid and snaps to 10 as per tutorial, the grid is outside the displayed area, this indicates to me that the system is still in inches. If I set grid and snap to .1 it displays as .1 inches. What am I doing wrong? I have, of course, restarted several times, with no change.