Solved Windows 11 installing addition keyboard layouts without my consent

Gorazd · Sep 4, 2025

Hi everyone,

I am using Slovak QWERTY keyboard as my main, and ENG (US) as a second. I noticed EVERY single time I turn on the PC, after running for some time, it will, by its own, display on the taskbar, as if another Slovak keyboard layout (QWERTZ) has been installed (01).

If now I will go into Time & Language / Language&Region / Slovak, then three dots to Language options, and then under Keyboard section press on Add a keyboard, I can see there is only one version installed, the correct QWERTY one (02).

To get rid of this additional language, I now need to press "add a keyboard" (03), add the Slovak QWERTZ (04) and then delete it (05), so it would disappear from the taskbar as well.

But I have to do this EVERY single time I restart the PC, and it is pesky.

What am I suppose to do, so this would not happen? Is there some setting(s) that can be disabled?

My system specs are in specs forum category.

Brink · Sep 4, 2025

Hello Gorazd, and welcome to the forum.

You can test using option three in the tutorial below to remove the keyboard layout in the registry to see if that may remove it from the language bar for good.

Add or Remove Keyboard Layout for Input Language in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove a keyboard layout for input language for your account in Windows 11. In Windows, you can change your keyboard layout to type in another language or input method you want to use.. The language of your keyboard layout controls the characters that...

www.elevenforum.com

Gorazd · Sep 4, 2025

Brink said:
Hello Gorazd, and welcome to the forum.

You can test using option three in the tutorial below to remove the keyboard layout in the registry to see if that may remove it from the language bar for good.

Add or Remove Keyboard Layout for Input Language in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove a keyboard layout for input language for your account in Windows 11. In Windows, you can change your keyboard layout to type in another language or input method you want to use.. The language of your keyboard layout controls the characters that...

www.elevenforum.com

Hello and thank you :)

That unfortunately didn´t help: now, the language bar is missing alltogether after PC restart, but will pop back in when I press Shift+Alt and it changes to US keyboard. And if I switch to Slovak keyboard now, it is qwertz for some reason, so I had to revert the changes.

hdmi · Sep 8, 2025

This is a long-standing bug in Windows that dates back way more than a decade.

You can create a new task in Task Scheduler that runs when any user logs on. On the Actions tab, set the Program to control and set the Parameters to
intl.cpl,, /f:"C:\tools\Remove_sk-SK.xml", where C:\tools\Remove_sk-SK.xml is the filepath of a file that has this in it:

XML:

<gs:GlobalizationServices xmlns:gs="urn:longhornGlobalizationUnattend">
    <!--User List-->
    <gs:UserList>
        <gs:User UserID="Current"/>
    </gs:UserList>
    <!--input preferences-->
    <gs:InputPreferences>
        <!--add Slovak keyboard input-->
        <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="041b:0000041b"/>
        <!--remove Slovak keyboard input-->
        <gs:InputLanguageID Action="remove" ID="041b:0000041b"/>
    </gs:InputPreferences>
</gs:GlobalizationServices>

For a more "permanent" fix, you could try to repair install Windows 11 with an in-place upgrade. However, this takes some time to do, and, although the vast majority of settings in Windows Settings will remain unchanged by it, a few of these settings may be reset to their default. So, if the task in Task Scheduler works for you, then you might prefer to just use it instead.

Gorazd · Sep 9, 2025

Dang, and they still haven´t fixed that???

I have been putting off installing Win11 until I really had to and I am just flabbergasted they haven´t fixed something so obvious and present for a long time.
But I probably shouldn´t be surprised at MS at this point - company who does not allow users to have numlock enabled without tinkering in registry or does not support widescreen monitors (yes, I am talking about taskbar position) in 2025 is just... very out of touch with their users needs.

Thank you for your fix though, I will try it out after work today.

Gorazd · Sep 11, 2025

Hello hdmi,

I tried to use your script, but I probably set something wrong, as it is not working.
Specifically, you wrote: "On the Actions tab, set the Program to control and set".

However, I do not see anything which could be set to "control", here is what I can see.

There is only "Start a program" action, nothing else. Through the browse button I selected the location with the script you provided, and I put into the "Add Arguments (optional)" field the parameters you describe in your post, so I hope I set it up correctly.

Also, when I run it on demand, all it does is this. It tries to open the folder path (for the script) as a file? I must have set something wrong.

hdmi · Sep 11, 2025

Gorazd · Sep 12, 2025

How did you put a control in there? I don´t see anything like that on my side.
It does not allow me to do that.

Also if I keep empty line for program/script as you do, it does not allow me to save.

Try3 · Sep 12, 2025

Gorazd said:
How did you put a control in there?

Just type the word in that box.

Denis

Gorazd · Sep 15, 2025

Just type the word in that box.

Try3 said:
Denis

Ah, thanks!

I modified the script, now it is running as on the picture, but the keyboard layout is still there.
When I removed it manually, it will get displayed again after some time (maybe something specific triggers it, I was not able to find out what).

When it´s back and I re-run the task manually (I set it so I could re-run it manually), nothing happens - additional keyboard layout still stays there. In another words, the script doesn´t seem to be doing anything and I still need to remove the additional keyboard manually.

Gorazd · Sep 15, 2025

Oh, but I get now what it does - it prevents the additional language to be choosable when Shift+Alt!
So although you can still see it on the taskbar, it doesn´t bother you when switching with keyboard shortcut between layouts.

I haven´t tried the manual switching, I suppose that one still works, but as long as it works at least like this, I am fine.

Thank you again for the script!

hdmi · Sep 15, 2025

After the QWERTZ layout comes back again, could you please run the PowerShell Cmdlet below, and copy-paste its output into your next message on here?

Powershell:

Get-WinUserLanguageList

Gorazd · Sep 16, 2025

Yes, here it is:

Before the QWERTZ layout came back :
LanguageTag : sk
Autonym : Slovenčina
EnglishName : Slovak
LocalizedName : Slovak
ScriptName : Latin
InputMethodTips : {041B:0001041B}
Spellchecking : True
Handwriting : False

LanguageTag : en-US
Autonym : English (United States)
EnglishName : English
LocalizedName : English (United States)
ScriptName : Latin
InputMethodTips : {0409:00000409}
Spellchecking : True
Handwriting : False

After the QWERTZ layout came back:
LanguageTag : sk
Autonym : Slovenčina
EnglishName : Slovak
LocalizedName : Slovak
ScriptName : Latin
InputMethodTips : {041B:0001041B}
Spellchecking : True
Handwriting : False

LanguageTag : en-US
Autonym : English (United States)
EnglishName : English
LocalizedName : English (United States)
ScriptName : Latin
InputMethodTips : {0409:00000409}
Spellchecking : True
Handwriting : False

I can still see it on the taskbar, but when selecting the layout via shortcut (Shift+Alt), it will skip the QWERTZ one and picks the US one correctly, so I assumed this is how the script works.

hdmi · Sep 19, 2025

Gorazd said:
I can still see it on the taskbar

After the layout can no longer be selected with Shift+Alt, can you make the layout disappear from the taskbar by (in an elevated command prompt) running
taskkill /f /im ctfmon.exe ?

Gorazd · Sep 22, 2025

hdmi said:
After the layout can no longer be selected with Shift+Alt, can you make the layout disappear from the taskbar by (in an elevated command prompt) running
taskkill /f /im ctfmon.exe ?

No, when I run the command, it will kill given process:
SUCCESS: The process "ctfmon.exe" with PID 12804 has been terminated.

But the layout still remains visible in the taskbar.

hdmi · Sep 22, 2025

Gorazd said:
No, when I run the command, it will kill given process:
SUCCESS: The process "ctfmon.exe" with PID 12804 has been terminated.

Yeah, Windows automatically starts it again, immediately after that.

Gorazd said:
But the layout still remains visible in the taskbar.

That sucks...

Gorazd · Sep 22, 2025

Yeah, it would be nice, if it would disappear, but as I said, if the script allows me to elegantly switch via shortcut and not get pestered with switching through additional layout which I did not want but keeps getting installed AND I doesn´t have to do the repair installation, I am fine with it, so thanks :)

ricoooww · Sep 28, 2025

I have exactly the same problem. In the Netherlands, we use the International keyboard layout (NLD-INT), but at some point, it suddenly switches to the Netherlands layout (NLD-NLD). I never installed this layout myself, and I can't find it anywhere in the Settings app.

I've noticed that this issue occurs when I open Notepad.exe.

Gorazd · Sep 28, 2025

ricoooww said:
I have exactly the same problem. In the Netherlands, we use the International keyboard layout (NLD-INT), but at some point, it suddenly switches to the Netherlands layout (NLD-NLD). I never installed this layout myself, and I can't find it anywhere in the Settings app.

I've noticed that this issue occurs when I open Notepad.exe.

Have you tried the script solution? It worked for me.
I didn´t want to do the repair installation at this point, so far I doesn´t have to, script works just fine.

Gorazd · Sep 29, 2025

And you are right - once I open notepad, the additional language pops out!

Solved Windows 11 installing addition keyboard layouts without my consent

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