Windows 10 will guide you through configuring your preferred language during the initial setup, but if you didn't select the correct option or use a device already configured with a different language, you don't have to struggle when your requirements are different, nor do you have to reinstall the operating system.
On Windows 10, when using a Microsoft account, some of your preferences (including language) will sync across the device. If you only plan to change the settings on the computer, you should turn off the option to sync your language settings to prevent changing the same settings on other devices.
You rarely have to change or add other languages on Windows 10. However, changing these settings may come in handy in organizations working with people who need to use different preferences. It's also a helpful feature to match the locale settings if you relocate to another region or when buying a new laptop that ships from a different country.
Select Add a keyboard and choose the keyboard you want to add. If you don't see the keyboard you want, you may have to add a new language to get additional options. If this is the case, go on to step 4.
If you receive an "Only one language pack allowed" or "Your Windows license supports only one display language" message, you have a single language edition of Windows 10. Here's how to check your Windows 10 language edition:
If you see Windows 11 Home Single Language next to Edition, you have a single language edition of Window 11, and you can't add a new language unless you purchase an upgrade to either Windows 11 Home or Windows 11 Pro.
If you see Windows 10 Home Single Language next to Edition, you have a single language edition of Window 10, and you can't add a new language unless you purchase an upgrade to either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro.
To remove an individual keyboard, select the language in question (see step 2), select Options, scroll down to the Keyboards section, select the keyboard you want to remove, and click Remove.
If you represent a government or government agency, a government-affiliated or government-sponsored cultural or language board or institution, or an accredited educational institution, you may redistribute the Pack to validly licensed users of the Software, in the same form as received from Microsoft.
Using Windows Update. If you're running an Ultimate or Enterprise edition of Windows, you can download available language packs by using Windows Updates. Language packs installed using Windows Update provide a fully translated version of Windows dialog boxes, menu items, and help content. All the languages available for this type of download have "Windows Update" listed in the right column of the table below.
Using the links on this page. You can download Language Interface Packs (LIPs) from the Microsoft Download Center by using the links below. You can install LIPs over any edition of Windows, but they provide a translated version of only the most widely used dialog boxes, menu items, and help content. To install a LIP, you will need to have the required parent language installed on your PC.
The table below shows if the language you're looking for requires a premium edition of Windows or a particular parent language.
The following tables show the supported language packs for Windows desktop editions and Windows Server, and supported language interface packs (LIPs) for Windows desktop editions. LIPs are available for Windows desktop releases, but are not available for Windows Server. For more information, see Language packs.
The version of the language, LIP, or Feature on Demand must match the version number. For example, you can neither add a Windows 10 version 1809 LIP to Windows 10 version 1803 image, nor add a Windows Server 2019 language pack to Windows Server 2016.
The language resources on this page can help you develop localized versions of applications that integrate with Microsoft products. By using the same terminology and style that Microsoft uses, your customers will find it easier to get started with your applications when used with Microsoft products.
Microsoft Terminology can be used to ensure that terminology in your localized versions of applications match the corresponding terminology in Microsoft products. It can also be used to integrate Microsoft terminology into other terminology collections or serve as a base IT glossary for language development in the nearly 100 languages available. You can query the Microsoft Terminology via the Microsoft Terminology Search page. Microsoft terminology is also provided in .tbx format, an industry standard for terminology exchange.
Microsoft Style Guides are collections of rules that define language and style conventions for specific languages. These rules usually include general localization guidelines, information on language style and usage in technical publications, and information on market-specific data formats.
UPDATE: This article mostly covers it but doesn't appear to work as intended, it only appears to enable the ability for the end user to then install the language pack. It isn't automatic in our experience, we suspect the automatic aspect is only fully available for Windows 11 as we are using Windows 10. -to-change-the-windows-11-language-with-intune/
I've set up so that Windows remembers my input language preference for each app, it works really well (US-English as default with Swedish for some apps) until I close the apps/restart the OS, then it forgets and reverts back to English again. Is there a setting to prevent this from happening? I want it to always remember my language preference for each app.
Start > Settings > Time & Language > Region & language > Additional date, time & regional settings > (under Language) Change input methods > Advanced settings > (under switching input methods) Check on "Let me set a different input method for each app window"
Since the larger languages also appear to have larger associated native speaking populations (i.e. German, French and Japanese vs Dutch, Estonian) however this is not consistent. (Italian is small at 60 MB yet has a large population)
First of all, there probably isn't everything translated in every language pack, so that might be a difference. Then there are several other things that could well vary in size (and probably don't exist in every language either), like
I had a similar problem in a swiss environment. My language settings listed only two languages: swiss german and russian, which I also wanted to have. But the language box in the task panel listed 4 languages: swiss german, standard german, swiss french and russian.
I had the same problem: lots of languages in language bar (each added when I installed different language versions of a software), yet only two listed in the Control Panel - so I couldn't remove them from there.
International companies often have issues with how to handle languages. It can be a lot to manage if your organization is global and requires you to maintain multiple base versions of Windows and their different languages.
After you completed the installation, look on the documentation about the configuration of the language and culture settings - -us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/add-language-packs-to-windows?view=windows-11#change-your-default-language-locale-and-other-international-settings
On Windows 10 20H2, none of the answers helped me to change the recovery mode language. Here is what helped me to change the recovery mode language (and some system messages during boots and reboots) without editing images and making any manual manipulations with installation media:
Set all available system languages to the language of your choice (English in my case). This step may be excessive, but that's what I did: in bcdedit, in user settings, in the administrative language settings.
That's it! Follow the linear progress to upgrade your Windows. In the end, I've got the English language everywhere including the recovery mode and the most recent Windows version with all programs and settings kept.
when i downloaded my windows recovery, it came with the option of only choosing 5 languages, all in european countries and none of them was english. I had to install windows using google translate. after installing, i downloaded english language pack after several efforts, and it did manage to change the display language to English, however not everything was changed. when you boot the computer, the language was in danish, and when you would get an error from windows it would be displayed in danish
I tried the solution of using bcdedit on command prompt. Command prompt showed me it has accepted the commands, however nothing happend. I then went ahead to follow this option of changing the language registry files, as illustrated above and it worked great. it worked perfectly. Thank you for this hack....
You are now ready to use the new language. The display language changes will now reflect throughout the operating system, including the Sign-in screen, Settings app, File Explorer, Desktop, applications, browser so on.
Interestingly, when opening an elevated command prompt and typing: "lpksetup /u", the user sees two English languages listed (it doesn't say which is which - they're both listed as English). Would removing this resolve the issue? Why would the language keep returning upon a restart?
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