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
- Locate the Windows image (.wim) file that contains the Windows
images that you intend to remove languages from.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- Optional: Type the following command to list the languages in
the offline image.
Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Get-Intl
- 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 ...
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- In the Package node, under Language Packs,
right-click the language pack that you want to remove and select
Add to Answer File.
- In the Properties pane, under Settings, choose
the Remove value for the Action setting.
- 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>
- Use DISM to mount the Windows image. For example,
Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Dism /Get-WIMInfo /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim
Dism /Mount-WIM /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim /Name:"Windows 7 HomeBasic" /MountDir:C:\test\offline
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- In the Package node, under Language Packs,
right-click the language pack that you want to add, and then select
Add to Answer File.
- In the Properties pane, under Settings, choose
the Install value for the Action setting.
- You can also configure international settings in the answer
file. For more information, see Configure International
Settings in an Answer File.
- Validate and save the answer file.
- Close Windows SIM.
Important: Make sure that the language pack is copied to the location specified in the answer file.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
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.
- 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.