How to REALLY handle the unattended version of Regional and Language Options

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2006/05/20 13:20 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/05/20/602745.aspx

I have talked about the Microsoft Knowledge Base article that describes how to run Regional and Language Options in unattend mode (289125), like in these three posts.

In all three, I used a technique akin to the following to start the control panel applet, just as the KB article does:

rundll32.exe shell32,Control_RunDLL intl.cpl

Allow me to point out at this point that I was incorrect, and so is that KB article.

As Raymond Chen has pointed out, the right way to do it (unless you are working for Microsoft and trying to debug the bleeding control panel applet) is via control.exe:

control.exe intl.cpl

This is even the documented way to do things, as is described here:

control.exe International

This is obviously much easier to remember and use than anything involving rundll32....

And as reader Paul pointed out (posted again here so it can have more visibility!):

Might be worth noting that this process does create a logfile, by default in c:\windows\regopt.log that has content like the following:

************************************************************
Region and Languages Options Unattended Mode Log  
************************************************************

/f:"c:\regopts.txt" /s:"I:\I386"

Switch /F detected!
Switch /S detected!
<--- Unattended file log start---->
[RegionalSettings]
LanguageGroup=11
InputLocale=041e:0000041e
<---  Unattended file log end ---->
Language group installation requested: 11
No valid Language settings found, look for individual keywords.
Input locale installation requested.
Keyboard Layout installation requested: 041e

The best thing is when you get it wrong (e.g. specify the wrong language group for the locale you are requesting etc) it actually tells you what you are doing wrong.

Also, with the /S switch, you point it at the i386 directory level, not the LANG level, it finds LANG etc by itself :)

Hope that comes of use to someone!

In addition to all of this, let me add that I will be posting soon about the new Vista features related to running Regional and Language Options in an unattended mode, including some of the changes that have to be made to scripts here....

Enjoy!

 

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# Ivan Petrov on 20 May 2006 2:35 PM:

Hi Michael.

Did you know how to start the 'Customize Regional Options' window using 'rundll32.exe' or 'control.exe' ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Ivan.

# Michael S. Kaplan on 20 May 2006 3:05 PM:

Sorry Ivan, there is actually no way to start it and open the customize dialog, other than to have some sort of UI automation press the button, etc.

# Rune on 23 May 2006 1:38 AM:

Michael, on a related note, could you shed some light on language vs input locale?

I typically use a Norwegian keyboard layout, but many applications seem to think this means I also want Norwegian language in the UI. The most frustrating example is installing Intel's NIC drivers on a server. Half of the UI is in English and the rest in Norwegian. Confusing to say the least and certainly annoying.

I've been looking for a separate value that indicates the preferred language of the user, but all I can find is the input locale.

Rather silly if this is the case, but I do see many apps that makes this assumption, so...

There's nothing wrong with Norwegian, but the community is too small to warrant translation of computer terms. Someone have of course tried, but we all ignore their efforts.

--
Rune

# Anna on 16 Jun 2006 7:13 AM:

Ivan, in Vista there is a way to start the Customize Regional Options by calling

control.exe intl.cpl,, /p:"numbers"

Drewfus on 11 Feb 2010 1:34 PM:

In the c:\windows\regopt.log listed, what does "No valid Language settings found, look for individual keywords" mean?

What settings could be included in the input file to prevent this warning?

Michael S. Kaplan on 12 Feb 2010 4:41 PM:

If you don't give more info including what is in your unattend file it is hard to comment....

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referenced by

2009/09/01 For language settings, Walmart ain't all that; 7-Eleven is what gets it done!

2008/05/23 When the LANGID in the LOWORD of the KLID doesn't match the LANGID you want keyboard under?

2007/06/05 Launching the keyboard layouts dialog directly?

2006/05/30 Unattend for Regional and Language Options in Vista

2006/05/22 UI language != input language (at least not always!)

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