Skip to main content

keyboard - Windows 7 - Change Region and Language settings using a script


OS: Windows 7 64-bit


I have a machine that has had its "Region and Language" settings all set to "Canada". What I need to do is change all those settings to revert back to the default of "United States". Additionally, I want to create a script to do this, as I expect to run into more machines with this issue. I don't want to have to change settings through the GUI on every machine.


I need to do these actions on these tabs:


Region and Language (Format)-
I need "Format" changed to "English (United States)"


Region and Language (Location)-
I need "Current Location" set to "United States"


Region and Language - Text Services and Input Language (General)-
I need to delete all keyboard languages except for "English (United States) - US"


Region and Language (Administrative)-
Here I believe that "non-Unicode programs" will also have to be set to "English (United States)"


(I have screenshots but I do not have the reputation required to post them.)


So far I have found this document from Microsoft that demonstrates an XML file that can be created to modify the settings above


The problem is that the only XML example from the link that appears to be working properly is the one for adding and setting a keyboard language as default. I have tried some of the other examples but they do not appear to be working. Here's a working example:
















The code above will add in the United States keyboard language if it doesn't exist and then set it as default, but unfortunately I can't get it to delete the Canadian keyboard language.


Is there a method to programatically change all these settings? Am I overlooking something obvious?



Answer



I was able to come up with a solution to my problem!
There are a few things I learned.


In the "ID", the portion of the number in front of the colon ("1009") represents the Region Keyboard ie English(Canada). The number after the colon ("00001009") is the actual language installed for that keyboard. "00001009" will actually target the "Canada French" under the Region keyboard of English(Canada)


Another thing that I learned is that the region codes on the MS site were not displayed properly, which is why I wasn't able to change the "Locale" properly. This link contains the values you need to use when changing the "Locale". US is GeoID=244


The other thing I ended up having to do was to create two different XML files and run them one after the other. For some reason, removing the English(Canada) keyboard and all of it's sublanguages then adding the English(US) keyboard in the same script was producing an error that was stopping the XML file from applying properly. I had to do the removal of the keyboards (I left the Format and Locale change) in one XML file and the adding of the US keyboard in another XML file.


Anyway, for anyone interested I will post my final XML files below. To run them I used the following commands in a batch file.

control intl.cpl,, /f:""

(there is a space after the second comma)

First script to remove keyboards, change Format, and change Locale
Pay special attention to how the "ID" values are done, it illustrates what I was trying to explain above!

This script will add in the US keyboard and set it as the system default keyboard

That about sums it up.
Here are some additional helpful links:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912389%28WinEmbedded.11%29.aspx
http://texhex.blogspot.com/2009/10/installing-and-configuring-language.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb896001
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766503(WS.10).aspx


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Use Google instead of Bing with Windows 10 search

I want to use Google Chrome and Google search instead of Bing when I search in Windows 10. Google Chrome is launched when I click on web, but it's Bing search. (My default search engine on Google and Edge is http://www.google.com ) I haven't found how to configure that. Someone can help me ? Answer There is no way to change the default in Cortana itself but you can redirect it in Chrome. You said that it opens the results in the Chrome browser but it used Bing search right? There's a Chrome extension now that will redirect Bing to Google, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo , whichever you prefer. More information on that in the second link.
Post a Comment
Read more

linux - Using an index to make grep faster?

I find myself grepping the same codebase over and over. While it works great, each command takes about 10 seconds, so I am thinking about ways to make it faster. So can grep use some sort of index? I understand an index probably won't help for complicated regexps, but I use mostly very simple patters. Does an indexer exist for this case? EDIT: I know about ctags and the like, but I would like to do full-text search. Answer what about cscope , does this match your shoes? Allows searching code for: all references to a symbol global definitions functions called by a function functions calling a function text string regular expression pattern a file files including a file
Post a Comment
Read more

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y
Post a Comment
Read more

networking - Windows 10, can ping other PC but cannot access shared folders! What gives?

I have a computer running Windows 7 that shares a Git repo on drive D. Let's call this PC " win7 ". This repo is the origin of a project that we push to and pull from. The network is a wireless network. One PC on this network is running on Windows 10. Let's call this PC " win10 ". Win10 can ping every other PC on the network including win7 . Win7 can ping win10 . Win7 can access all shared files on win10 . Neither of the PCs have passwords. Problem : Win10 cannot access any shared files on win7 , not from Explorer, nor from Git Bash or any other Git management system (E-Git on Eclipse or Visual Studio). So, win10 cannot pull/push. Every other PC on the network can access win7 shared files and push/pull to/from the shared Git origin. What's wrong with Windows 10? I have tried these: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings\ File sharing is on, Discovery is on, Password protected sharing is off Adapte
Post a Comment
Read more