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Add and Remove Language Packs Offline

  • Article

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

Note

This content applies to Windows 7. For Windows 8 content, see Windows Deployment with the Windows ADK.

All installations of Windows® 7 contain at least one language pack and the language-neutral binaries that make up the core operating system. This topic includes information about using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) to add or remove additional language packs, and to configure international settings. You can use the same procedures to add or remove Language Interface Packs (LIPs). For more information about the difference between a language pack and a LIP, see Understanding Multilingual Deployments.

The Windows image must be a recently installed and captured image, or the default Windows 7 retail image. This ensures that the Windows image does not have any pending package actions. The Windows images can be in any language. For example, you can start with an English (en-US) image and add support for Japanese (ja-JP) and Korean (ko-KR). In addition, you can add LIPs to a Windows image that contains the supported parent language. For more information about the supported language packs and LIPs, see Understanding Language Packs.

This topic includes the following procedures.

  • Remove a Language Pack from a Windows Image describes how to use DISM to remove a language pack from an offline Windows image. You must remove any language packs that you do not intend to use before you add new language packs to a Windows image.

  • Add a Language Pack to a Windows Image describes how to add a new language pack to an offline Windows image.

  • Configure International Settings describes how to use DISM to change the default display language and configure other international settings in a Windows image.

For information about adding a language pack to a Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) image, see Add a Language Pack to a Windows PE Image.

Remove a Language Pack from a Windows Image

Before you add new language packs to a Windows image, you must remove any language packs that you do not intend to use. There are two ways to remove language packs offline with DISM. You can either apply an unattended answer file to the offline image, or you can remove the language pack directly from the offline image, using the command prompt.

Important

You cannot remove a language pack from an offline Windows image if there are pending online actions. The Windows image should be a recently installed and captured image. This will ensure that the Windows image does not have any pending online actions that require a reboot.

To remove a language pack using DISM

  1. Locate the Windows image (.wim) file that contains the Windows images that you intend to remove languages from.

  2. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Windows OPK or Windows AIK, right-click Deployment Tools Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator.

  3. At the command prompt, type the following command to retrieve the name or index number for the image you want to modify.

    Dism /Get-WIMInfo /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim

    An index or name value is required for most operations that specify a .wim file.

  4. Type the following command to mount the offline Windows image.

    Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Name:"Windows 7 HomeBasic" /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  5. Optional: Type the following command to list the languages in the offline image.

    Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Get-Intl

  6. Type the following command to remove a language pack from the image. You can remove multiple .cab files using one command-line statement.

    Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Remove-Package /PackagePath:C:\packages\package1.cab /PackagePath:C:\packages\package2.cab ...

  7. Type the following command to commit the changes. The image remains mounted until the /unmount option is used.

    Dism /Commit-Wim /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  8. The language packs are removed from your image. The next step is to add a language pack to the mounted offline image. To continue, see Add a Language Pack to a Windows Image.

To remove a language pack using DISM and an unattended answer file

  1. Use Windows® System Image Manager (Windows SIM) to create an answer file that contains only the language packs that you want to remove. Open the Windows image by using Windows SIM and create a new answer file. For more information about using Windows SIM, see Create a New Answer File.

  2. In the Package node, under Language Packs, right-click the language pack that you want to remove and select Add to Answer File.

  3. In the Properties pane, under Settings, choose the Remove value for the Action setting.

  4. Save the answer file and close Windows SIM. The answer file must be similar to the following example.

    <package action="remove">  
   <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePack-Package" version="6.0.5714.0" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="en-US" />  
</package>

  5. Use DISM to mount the Windows image. For example,

    Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  6. Use DISM to apply the unattended answer file to the mounted Windows image. For example,

    Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Apply-Unattend:C:\test\answerfiles\myunattend.xml

    For more information about using DISM to apply an unattended answer file, see Unattended Servicing Command-Line Options.

  7. Type the following command to commit the changes. The image remains mounted until the /unmount option is used.

    Dism /Commit-Wim /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  8. The language packs are removed from your image. The next step is to add a language pack to the mounted offline image. To continue, see Add a Language Pack to a Windows Image.

Add a Language Pack to a Windows Image

Language packs are available as .cab files and are named Lp.cab. Packages provided as .cab files can be added to an offline Windows image using the DISM command-line tool. You can use the same procedure to add a language pack or a Language Interface Pack (LIP).

Important

LIPs are released as .mlc files. When you add a LIP to an offline Windows image using the DISM command-line tool, you must rename the LIP file from LIP.mlc to LIP.cab.

LIPs can be installed only on a Windows image that has the supported parent languages installed. For example, the Basque LIP can be installed only on a Windows image that has the Spanish (Spain) or French (France) parent language pack installed. Before you install a LIP to an offline Windows image, verify that the supported parent languages are installed. For more information about the supported language packs and LIPs, see Understanding Language Packs.

You can also add language packs and LIPs to an answer file and then apply the answer file to an offline Windows image. When you do this, you can install the LIP and the parent language in the same operation.

Important

Do not install a language pack after an update. If you install an update (hotfix, general distribution release [GDR], or service pack [SP]) that contains language-dependent resources before you install a language pack, the language-specific changes contained in the update are not applied and you will need to reinstall the update. Always install language packs before installing updates.

To add a language pack using DISM

  1. Before you add new language packs to a Windows image, you must remove any language packs from the Windows image that you do not intend to use. For more information, see Remove a Language Pack from a Windows Image.

  2. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Windows OPK or Windows AIK, right-click Deployment Tools Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator.

  3. If your image is already mounted from the previous procedure, you can type the following command to list the images that are currently mounted and information about the mounted image such as mount location and mounted image index.

    Dism /Get-MountedWimInfo

    If your image is not mounted, type the following command to retrieve the name or index number for the image you want to modify.

    Dism /Get-WIMInfo /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim

    An index or name value is required for most operations that specify a Windows image (.wim) file. Type the following command to mount the image.

    Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Name:"Windows 7 HomeBasic" /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  4. Type the following command to add a language pack to the mounted offline image. You can add multiple packages on one command line.

    Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /ScratchDir:C:\Scratch /Add-Package /PackagePath:C:\packages\package1.cab /PackagePath:C:\packages\package2.cab ...

Note

The scratch directory must be at least 1 GB for adding language packs.

  1. Type the following command to commit the changes. The image remains mounted until the /unmount option is used.

    Dism /Commit-Wim /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  2. The language packs are added to the Windows image. The next step is to Configure International Settings.

To add a language pack using an answer file

  1. Note the location of the language packs you want to add to the Windows image. Language packs are stored in .cab files and are called Lp.cab.

  2. Use Windows SIM to create an answer file that contains only the language packs that you want to add. For more information about how to create an answer file, see Work with Answer Files.

  3. In the Package node, under Language Packs, right-click the language pack that you want to add, and then select Add to Answer File.

  4. In the Properties pane, under Settings, choose the Install value for the Action setting.

  5. You can also configure international settings in the answer file. For more information, see Configure International Settings in an Answer File.

  6. Validate and save the answer file.

  7. Close Windows SIM.

Important

Make sure that the language pack is copied to the location specified in the answer file.

  1. If the image is not already mounted, use DISM to mount the Windows image. For example,

    Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  2. Use DISM to apply the unattended installation answer file to the mounted Windows image. For example,

    DISM /Image:C:\test\offline /Apply-Unattend:C:\test\answerfiles\myunattend.xml

    For more information about applying an unattended answer file using DISM, see Unattended Servicing Command-Line Options.

  3. The language packs are added to the Windows image, and international settings are configured.

Configure International Settings

After you add or remove a language pack in a Windows image, you can set the default user interface (UI) language, which is also known as the display language. At the same time, you can configure the international settings in the Windows image using DISM.

You can also configure international settings in an answer file. For more information about how to do this, see Configure International Settings in an Answer File.

Note

If you specify a default UI language and locale settings with the DISM tool, and then specify different language and locale settings in an answer file, the settings in the answer file overwrite the default values specified by the DISM tool.

To configure international settings using DISM

  1. You must first mount the image if it is not already mounted. For example,

    Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline

  2. To change all international language settings in the mounted offline image to match the default values set by Microsoft for a given language, at the DISM command prompt, type the following command,

    Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Set-SKUIntlDefaults:en-us

    For more information about default values, see Language Pack Default Values

    Optionally, you can configure different values for different settings, including UI language, system locale, user locale, input locale, and others. For more information about specifying individual values for each of these settings, see Languages and International Servicing Command-Line Options.

  3. At a command prompt, type the following command to commit the changes and unmount the image.

    Dism /Unmount-WIM /MountDir:C:\test\offline /Commit

The Windows image is ready to be deployed.

See Also

Concepts

Understanding Multilingual Deployments
Service an Offline Image
Deployment Image Servicing and Management Technical Reference
Languages and International Servicing Command-Line Options
Unattended Servicing Command-Line Options
Windows System Image Manager Technical Reference