1

As instructed in Mr. Excel, I ran the following VBA code:

Public Sub Set_English()
  Shell "PowerShell Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList en-GB, farsi -Force"
End Sub
  • I don't have a Farsi keyboard installed and was trying to change from a different language, which caused the language icon to disappear from the Taskbar, with keyboard shortcuts Alt+Shift and WinKey+Space not working, leaving no way to change languages

I searched a lot for solutions, but didn't find a permanent one, although these solutions worked temporarily until rebooting, after which the language icon is no longer there:

  • Removing and re-adding a language; later discovering moving the language up or down worked as well
  • Adding another user, and upon switching to the other user account, the language icon appears, staying upon switching back
    • I'm looking for a permanent solution for this, understanding that I can use the new user account which doesn't have that problem, but I would like to avoid that since I have a lot of personalization in my original user account

The following solutions didn't work at all:

  • Running sfc /scannow
  • Verifying value 4 is set for Registry key: 
    HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF\LangBar
  • Adding a new String Value with content "ctfmon"="CTFMON.EXE" to Registry key: (running ctfmon.exe directly didn't work) 
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  • Setting the language bar as not hidden in the Language bar options; this shows an additional language icon which only becomes visible when the original icon [Input Indicator] becomes visible (referring to when the Input Indicator is invisible due to this problem, not when turning it off manually):
    Taskbar Screenshot
    Language bar is the EN in white, circled in red, whereas the Input Indicator is the ENG in black, leaving the option Docked in the Taskbar checked since the problem occurred
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8
  • The "code" you ran is just using VBA to run PowerShell, and the actual running command was Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList en-GB, farsi -Force. You should be looking how to revert that change. Maybe just recognizing you messed it up, and then using an appropriate command, based on that same code, to set the language to what you want it to be.
    – music2myear
    Commented May 23 at 21:07
  • Have you tried system restore or the normal system repair functions of windows 10?
    – music2myear
    Commented May 23 at 21:10
  • "...to set the language to what you want it to be" - I'm not looking to change the language once, I'm looking for the language icon to be available on the taskbar.
    – George Lee
    Commented May 24 at 13:53
  • @music2myear I tried some system repairs. I didn't remember exactly what I entered to the cmd window, but on next restart it "fixed" itself for nearly an hour without any results.
    – George Lee
    Commented May 26 at 22:17
  • If System Repair did not resolve this, you should reinstall Windows. It is POSSIBLE that the code you ran made this problem, but that level of error is pretty significant and you are probably better offer completing a re-install to get things back to how you wish them to be.
    – music2myear
    Commented May 28 at 14:16

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

The problem disappeared after I did a System Restore to an automatic restore point via:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Recovery

I can't understand why I didn't think of it right away, or why I didn't find that recommendation anywhere.

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3
  • The second comment suggests performing a system restore. You said it didn’t work.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 4 at 23:42
  • @Ramhound Oh, you're right. I thought that system restore means restoring to the original settings, thus losing all customizations. The name system restore is very confusing. But I didn't say that it (system restore) didn't work. I said that something that I entered into the cmd window didn't work.
    – George Lee
    Commented Jun 6 at 14:46
  • @GeorgeLee That would be a Reset. If you have your user settings backed up to a Microsoft account and had needed to permanently create a new user to use, you wouldn't lose your customizations and would simply transfer all user data from the old User Profile to the new User Profile. If needing something from within the HKCU Registry store of the old User Profile, you'd simply mount the old user's NTUSER.DAT store, export the keys needed, and import them into the current user's HKCU store
    – JW0914
    Commented Jun 7 at 13:24

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