Automate adding new Windows languages

[Francois Gouget]

On Fri, 2 Aug 2019, Francois Gouget wrote:

> 
> Does anyone know how to automate adding new languages to Windows 10?

I looked into this but I did not find anything that looks like it 
could work.

As a reminder the manual way involves going to Settings -> Time & 
Language -> Language -> Add a language. Pick a language, scroll down to 
select a language, click Next and Install. Rinse repeat, one language at 
a time.

What I found:

* lpksetup
  Language packs can be installed with lpksetup.exe but this requires 
  downloading the language pack files beforehand. I could download them 
  and use TestAgent to send them to the VM.
  But:
  - These language packs are specific to each Windows version so I would
    need to repeat that whenever there's a new Windows version.
  - It seems the normal way to access these language packs is by 
    downloading the "Language Pack ISO" but the access to this seems to 
    be restricted to "OEMs and System Builders".
  - There are URLs floating around but they are hard to find, are only 
    for old versions, and point to 404s so it's not even possible to 
    test this approach.

* Dism /Online /Add-Package
  Dism is normally used to modify Windows installation disk images to 
  integrate additional features: drivers, software, language packs, etc. 
  That functionality is useless to me since I need to modify a live 
  Windows installation.

  Luckily the /Online option makes it possible to do just that. But:

  - The command takes the form of "Dism /Online /Add-Package 
    /PackagePath=..." where PackagePath specifies the path to the 
    language pack file(s). So as for lpksetup this requires finding a 
    way to download the language pack first.

* Dism /Online /Set-AllIntl
  "Dism /Set-AllIntl" is a related Dism command that sets the language 
  settings. I was hoping it would also download and install the required 
  components. But no such dice. In fact it does not even work on already 
  installed languages (use "Dism /Online /Get-Intl" to get the list) 
  because /Set-AllIntl is incompatible with the /Online option.

* Control intl.cpl
  This is the command I use to configure which language to use. You'd 
  think that there would also be some option to install the language but 
  if so I have not found it. I also doubt it's possible in the intl.cpl 
  is an old "Control Panel" component whereas the only place to install 
  the languages is in the new "Windows settings" app.


* AutoHotKey
  Seems like this would be a somewhat complex and fragile solution. I'm 
  worried it would be hard to pick the right entry in the language 
  drop-down list. I'm also wary of side-effects it could have on the 
  test environment.


I think that sums up what I found.
So again if someone knows how to do this...

-- 
Francois Gouget <fgouget at free.fr>              http://fgouget.free.fr/
                         Stolen from an Internet user:
              "f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng !"