Change Keyboard Layout via Group Policy

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Copy the below few lines to a notepad and name the file keyboard.adm.

Note: You may need to renter the speech marks once copied to notepad

Set ‘VALUEON’ to preferred language code. See Language key list below.

Create a new policy named keyboard and add the ADM file.

CLASS USER
CATEGORY “Custom Settings”
CATEGORY “Keyboard Layout”
POLICY “Set UK Keyboard Layout”
KEYNAME “Keyboard Layout\Preload”
VALUENAME 1
VALUEON 00000809
VALUEOFF “”
END POLICY ;Set UK Keyboard Layout
END CATEGORY ;Keyboard Layout
END CATEGORY ;Custom Settings

Language Key
The Part which says VALUEON:

00000402      Bulgarian
0000041a     Croatian
00000405     Czech
00000406     Danish
00000413     Dutch (Standard)
00000813     Dutch (Belgian)
00000409     English (United States)
00000809     English (United Kingdom)
00001009     English (Canadian)
00001409     English (New Zealand)
00000c09     English (Australian)
0000040b     Finnish
0000040c     French (Standard)
0000080c     French (Belgian)
0000100c     French (Swiss)
00000c0c     French (Canadian)
00000407     German (Standard)
00000807     German (Swiss)
00000c07     German (Austrian)
00000408     Greek
0000040e     Hungarian
0000040f     Icelandic
00001809     English (Irish)
00000410     Italian (Standard)
00000810     Italian (Swiss)
00000414     Norwegian (Bokmal)
00000814     Norwegian (Nynorsk)
00000415     Polish
00000816     Portuguese (Standard)
00000416     Portuguese (Brazilian)
00000418     Romanian
00000419     Russian
0000041b     Slovak
00000424     Slovenian
0000080a     Spanish (Mexican)
0000040a     Spanish (Traditional Sort)
00000c0a     Spanish (Modern Sort)
0000041d     Swedish
0000041f     Turkish

Instructions on how to add policy and activate

1) Save the file to C:Windows\inf on the server
2) Create and link a new group policy. Name the policy something suitable such as Keyboard Layout from US to UK
3) Right click and edit the keyboard layout group policy
4) Expand User Configuration
5) Right click Administrative Templates and choose add template
6) Select the keyboard.adm by browsing to Windows template and click OK until you are returned to the Group Policy Editor window
7) Click view from the toolbar
8.) Click filtering
9) Untick the bottom two boxes
10) Browse to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Custom Settings  and then double click Set UK Keyboard Layout
11) Enable the policy setting and click OK

Done

3 thoughts on “Change Keyboard Layout via Group Policy

  1. This is great! Although there is a couple languages missing from the list- is there a way to do this in Arabic?

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