English keyboard layout keeps appearing

Question

English keyboard layout keeps appearing

Konstantinas 25

Hi all,
for about a week now, the English keyboard layout keeps appearing in my taskbar out of nowhere.
I have set English (Germany) as my Windows Display Language.
The installed keyboard is German (QWERTZ)
I have no other language set up, nor other keyboard installed.

Some time after booting up, the English (United Kingdom) Language keeps appearing in the toolbar.

I found a way to remove it, but the steps seem unnecessarily long for such a trivial (Bug?)

– Add a new language: English (United Kingdom), set it as W11 Display Language

– Remove German (English)

– Add back English (Germany), set it as W11 Display Language, move it up the list

– Delete English (UK)

Below I have pasted some screenshots, I hope someone has a solution, since it's very annoying having "y" and "z" misspelled from time to time.

With the applied settings listed below, English (UK) keyboard layout just keeps appearing out of nowhere. I want my keyboard to remain in German layout at all times (highlighted). User's image

Time & Language Settings. English (Germany) only: User's image

English (Germany) having only the QWERTZ Layout.

User's image

MichaelSilverman-1518 11 Reputation points

2025-09-24T17:42:59.2933333+00:00

I thought I was going insane, same thing on my Windows 11 device. All of a sudden out of nowhere, my keyboard switched and continues switching to UK English from US English.
I didn't notice it until I was trying to log in somewhere and it kept telling me my password was wrong and until I showed it typing, I did not see that one of the characters changed on the leyboard.

I ran the powershell cmdlet however it does not show this unwanted keyboard. How do we get rid of this irritation? Or is this a 'feature'?

Answer accepted by question author

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MichaelSilverman-1518 11 Reputation points

2025-09-24T17:42:59.2933333+00:00

I thought I was going insane, same thing on my Windows 11 device. All of a sudden out of nowhere, my keyboard switched and continues switching to UK English from US English.
I didn't notice it until I was trying to log in somewhere and it kept telling me my password was wrong and until I showed it typing, I did not see that one of the characters changed on the leyboard.

I ran the powershell cmdlet however it does not show this unwanted keyboard. How do we get rid of this irritation? Or is this a 'feature'?

Answer 1

Hi Konstantinas,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

Thank you for sharing the screenshots. I understand how frustrating it is when an unwanted keyboard layout keeps reappearing even though you’ve configured only one. This is a known behavior in Windows 11 and usually happens because it injects fallback layouts (often English UK or US) for system components or apps. This is a designed feature to improve compatibility, and I can suggest some advanced steps to try and see if it can get rid of that unwanted keyboard layout:

1 - Check Advanced settings

Go to Settings > Time & language > Typing > Advanced keyboard settings
- Override for default input method is set to German (QWERTZ).
- Uncheck Let me use a different input method for each app window
If you have more than one device:
- Settings > Accounts > Windows backup > Remember my preferences.
- Turn Language preferences to OFF to prevent re-syncing from other devices.

2 - Remove hidden layouts:

Open PowerShell as Administrator > Run Get-WinUserLanguageList
If you see en-GB or en-US > Enter:
- $LangList = Get-WinUserLanguageList
- $LangList.RemoveAll({ $_.LanguageTag -eq "en-GB" })
- Set-WinUserLanguageList $LangList -Force

3 - Registry cleanup

Open Registry Editor > Navigate to these places:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout\Preload
- HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload
Delete any entry that is not 00000407 (German QWERTZ) > Restart your PC.

Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or work group is intended for advanced users, administrators, and IT Professionals. It can help fix some problems, however, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For further protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information, click How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - Microsoft Support to view the article.

If this reply is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it to assist others who might face similar problem. If you have extra questions, please click "Comment" instead.

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Konstantinas 25 Reputation points

2025-09-10T13:40:50.4233333+00:00

Hi Lychee-Ng,

thank you for your help.
To solve the problem, i have searched the forums for similar problems:
The advisor wrote these steps to solve the issue

I tried out the steps mentioned in the link above, as well as Step 1 and 2 you have suggested.
Up until now, the UK layout dos not appear, so i will accept the answer.

I tried to clean up the registry, but I did not find any value of 00000407 (German QWERTZ).
(This is purely informational, since I believe I have fixed my problem with steps mentioned above)

Inside of both preload folders I found this:

I checked the Substitutes folder inside both keyboard layout folders and found the value you have mentioned:

Cheers
Lychee-Ng 10,995 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-09-10T14:42:59.4433333+00:00

Thanks for the quick update. I'm glad it's working for you now!

Answer 2

DJCB 0

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

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English keyboard layout keeps appearing

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