Getting the real (localized) name of the keyboard

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2006/05/06 03:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/05/06/591174.aspx

The other day, someone had asked Dr. International about how to get the names of all the keyboards, the ones that appear in the Language Bar.

Now this is definitely not the easiest thing in the world, so I figured I ought to show the best way to do it....

The key is to look under the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts\

Each subkey represents a KLID (Keyboard Layout Identifer) for a specific keyboard layout.

Under each of these keys you will see some of the following values:

• Layout Text - Prior to XP, this is the localized, hard-coded name of the keyboard; for XP and beyond, this is the English name of the keyboard
• Layout Display Name - This value only exists in XP and later; it contains a string suitable for interpretation by the SHLoadIndirectString function, which can be a pointer to a string in a DLL that contains the localized name of the keyboard layout, based on the current UI language
• Layout Id - A hexidecimal number in string form that only exists for LANGID values that have multiple keyboard layouts, to help distinguish between them
• Layout File - The name of the keyboard layout DLL 
• Layout Component ID - A GUID value in string form which only exists on keyboard layouts created and installed by MSKLC; it is used to uniquely identify custom keyboard layouts for install and uninstall
• IME file - The name of the supporting data file for the IME, only present for IMEs
• System IME File - The path and file to the IME file, only present for some IMEs (for legacy reasons)
• Old IME Version - The version of the IME, only present for some IMEs (for legacy reasons)
• Old IME CodePage - The code page value for the IME, only present for some IMEs (for legacy reasons); in IMEs that have this value that ship with Windows XP and later, it contains 0x04b0, a.k.a. 1200, meaning Unicode

Now obviously for the current question, only the Layout Text and Layout Display Name are relevant (the latter for XP and later, the former for prior versions and to act as a fallback).

So the code can be something simple, like the following:

        [DllImport("shlwapi.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling=true)]
        internal static extern uint SHLoadIndirectString(string pszSource,
            StringBuilder pszOutBuf,
            uint cchOutBuf,
            IntPtr ppvReserved);

        internal static void KeyboardsOnMachine()
        {
            Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rk = null;
            Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkSub = null;

            try {
                rk = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Keyboard Layouts");
                if(null == rk) {
                    Console.WriteLine("Registry corrupt.");
                    throw(new System.Security.SecurityException());
                }

                foreach(string stSubKey in rk.GetSubKeyNames()) {
                    rkSub = rk.OpenSubKey(stSubKey, false);

                    if(null == rkSub) {
                        Console.WriteLine("Registry corrupt.");
                        throw(new System.Security.SecurityException());
                    }
                    string stLayoutName = "";
                    string stLayoutText = rkSub.GetValue("Layout Text", "").ToString();
                    string stDisplayNameString = rkSub.GetValue("Layout Display Name", "").ToString();

                    if(null != stDisplayNameString &&
                        stDisplayNameString.Length  > 0) {
                        StringBuilder sbName = new StringBuilder(260);

                        if(0 == SHLoadIndirectString(
                            stDisplayNameString, sbName, (uint)sbName.Capacity, IntPtr.Zero)) {
                            stLayoutName = sbName.ToString();
                        }
                    }

                    if(stLayoutName.Length == 0) {
                        stLayoutName = stLayoutText;
                    }

                    if(stLayoutName.Length > 0) {
                        Console.WriteLine("{0}\t{1}",
                            stSubKey,
                            stLayoutName);
                    }

                    rkSub.Close();
                }
            }
            catch(System.Security.SecurityException) { }
            catch(ArgumentException) { }
            finally {
                if(null != rkSub) {
                    rkSub.Close();
                }
                if(null != rk) {
                    rk.Close();
                }
            }

            return;
        }
    }

This code will build a nice big list of all of the available keyboards on the machine....

This post brought to you by "ಎ" (U+0c8e, a.k.a. KANNADA LETTER E)

# Jochen Kalmbach on 6 May 2006 2:26 PM:

# Michael S. Kaplan on 6 May 2006 3:48 PM:

# Jochen Kalmbach on 6 May 2006 4:28 PM:

# Michael S. Kaplan on 6 May 2006 5:08 PM:

# Jochen Kalmbach on 8 May 2006 7:11 AM:

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