Windows 7 Language Pack English Download
Martta Borromeo
I bought an Acer laptop in Germany and during setup it only offered German, so I was forced to go through setup in German. But once Windows properly started, I went into settings-language and changed it to English in all the places it's possible to do so. After some restarts and then deleting the German language, it should now be fully English. Most things are in English, but not everything. I'd say it's maybe 95% English. For example, if I click restart, the restarting message comes up in German. If I choose to restart in Safe Mode, the entire safe mode experience is in German. Here's a screenshot of another example. I was installing Firefox from the English FF installer. It got an error with the visual C run time dll and the error came up in German. I deliberately showed my language settings in the background and moved the dll error over it so it's clear to see that everything is set to English.
By the way, after having added English as another language, I tried going to Reset PC and went through that process and I was offered English as an initial setup language. Now that gave me more English, perhaps 98% but the install was bad - I couldn't open Settings any more. It would just crash on load. Tons of tips out there on how to fix Settings crashing on Windows 11 but none of them worked. So I was forced to re-install in German and then switch to English which is where I'm at now.
Thanks ze sk, that worked perfectly. I now see in English on restarting and on the welcome screen. I won't know about system errors until one happens, but they're pretty rare anyway. I would vote this as the answer but it seems like you can't vote a comment as the answer.
I had a simular problem. We are a swedish buisness with some empleyees in Germany. So they came to us with their computers and we had to install them in swedish so we could understand what we were doing, and as a last thing to do before handing over the devices was to change the language. But yeah, only like 85% was done and all applications that we installed before language changed had to be re-installed.
What Adiministrative language settings shows? (this should run intl.cpl)
i.e. the "Welcome screen and new user accounts" settings
if all don't say English United States, then check the boxes to copy your current settings
What I'm trying to achieve here is for Microsoft to acknowledge/accept that their process for switching languages is incomplete. There are thousands of threads findable by Google of people reporting this but it's not being fixed. A clean install is hardly a realistic suggestion - it's a big inconvenience, especially if you've gone to the trouble of installing and configuring a lot of applications already.
You can only install in any language when the installation procedure offers you that opportunity. With a full multi-language iso file, that's true. With a manufacturer customized pre-install from a foreign country, that isn't always an option. The initial setup did NOT offer anything other than German. My first attempt involved completing the setup in German, adding English, seeing that it was only 95% English and finding the Reset PC feature and trying again. At THAT point, it DID offer me English (because I'd added it) and following that setup it did give me an English install. The trouble was that the settings would always crash on open. This is also an issue reported thousands of times (google "windows 11 settings crash" and you'll see them all. There are about 5 ways people suggest to fix it, none of them worked.
So I figured a 95% English/5% German installation that was working was better than a 100% English installation that had broken settings so I did my third Windows install in German and added English and removed German to get me to where I am now.
I just want to report it so that maybe one day it'll be fixed. Changing language should change language 100%, otherwise display the option as "change most of the language but not everything - yes/no".
Thanks, but most of those are Windows 10 links. The Windows 11 ones are not really helpful. They just tell me how to do what I already did. I know I could download a full English ISO of Windows 11 and install from that but then I'd not have any of the drivers/tools that came with the laptop from the manufacturer.
I'm really looking for Microsoft to accept that when you change a language, it's not doing it completely. It's missing some key features that are left in the original language. A fix tool and eventual Windows Update that catches them all would be what's needed.
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.
The only caveat with changing the region settings is that it will also change the settings for the Microsoft Store, which may block access to certain apps and services, depending on the location. In the same way, you can change the region settings to access an application from the Microsoft Store that is only available in a specific region.
Mauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Mauro HuculakSocial Links NavigationMauro Huculak has been a Windows How-To Expert contributor for WindowsCentral.com for nearly a decade and has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides. He also has an IT background and has achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and CompTIA. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years.
I have bound the Norwegian keyboard layout to Shift+Alt+0 and that works, but it's annoying to have to do that every 5 minutes. Also I find it weird that I can't see the language bar neither on the desktop nor on the toolbar.
In Windows 10, by default, pressing CTRL+SHIFT (or for some ALT+SHIFT - thanks madmenyo ) will cycle through any keyboard layouts that you might have mapped and it's surprisingly easy to do this by mistake.
Be warned, the above doesn't always work - Restarts and Sleep mode can both change keyboard default (usually to US) - I've found no cast-iron solution though creating a new profile can help, though not a particularly satisfactory answer IMHO.
(This works for me because I generally type in English, only sometimes I want to input in Polish, but I can do it without changing the keyboard, since Polish keyboard is fully compatible with US QWERTY).
As @GuneyOzsan mentioned, some language/keyboard configurations might show only in language bar, but not in the language settings keyboards list (so you cannot remove it) -- particularly, this happens after a major update of Windows.To remove one of those items (e.g.: lang=US, keyboard=Canada), you have to add the same exact combination of the item you want to delete via the language settings list, and then remove it:
The default settings are very easy to hit, when using the keyboard, thus suddenly changing the keyboard language. Changing the keys to "Not Assigned" will prevent the keyboard language from switching accidentally.
Turns out I had to configure a keyboard layout in the first screenshot. You'll notice it says "Keyboard: None available". So clicking "Options" here, then "Add an input method" and then selecting QWERTY Norwegian solved the case.
My problem: I have 3 languages (keyboard layouts) installed. When going to sleep in Windows 10, then waking up, it always defaults back to the "main language", instead of keeping the last one set. I consider this a bug.
Now on Linux (at least on Debian-based distros) it's very easy to do this combination and even application-independent (an option that is also available in Windows for my surprise). On Windows 10 this is a nightmare.
In the latest Windows default keyboard-layout and language used for the interface are connected pretty tight. If I change the default order of the keyboard-layouts I have to change the interface language of Windows. Let's not forget the issues I'm facing with spellchecking and the fact that I always have to manually select German in Word etc. as my default language (even though I have explicitely set the spellchecking default language to German!!!). Otherwise I get English by default.