CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Di1997
Di1997

Reputation: 129

Questions/Problems related to set-winuserlanguagelist command

I'm building a code to fix keyboard layout situation on windows 10. With automated solution, I decided to use powershell. But the problem is that I'm pretty new in it and face certain problems. I managed to dig a script to change keyboard layouts, however it changes only to one language. As I try to create array with 2 languages:

$langlist=$lang_en,$lang_ru
set-winuserlanguagelist $langlist

It simply returns me next error:

Set-WinUserLanguageList : Cannot convert 'Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.WinUserLanguage' to the type
'Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.WinUserLanguage' required by parameter 'LanguageList'. Specified method is
not supported.
At line:1 char:25
+ set-winuserlanguagelist $langlist
+                         ~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Set-WinUserLanguageList], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotConvertArgument,Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.SetWinUserLanguageListCommand

When I tried to use next command: $test = Get-WinUserLanguageList, the command works well with set-winuserlanguagelist.

The full script:

$keys='0809:00020409', '0419:00000419'

$lang_en=new-winuserlanguagelist en-gb
$lang_en[0].inputmethodtips.clear()
$lang_en[0].inputmethodtips.add($keys[0])

$lang_ru=new-winuserlanguagelist ru
$lang_ru[0].inputmethodtips.clear()
$lang_ru[0].inputmethodtips.add($keys[1])

$langlist=$lang_en,$lang_ru

set-winuserlanguagelist $langlist

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3403

Answers (3)

Luke
Luke

Reputation: 2320

The Set-WinUserLanguageList cmdlet has evolved (at lease since Win 20H1) and the syntax is now very straightforward:

Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList 'fr-FR','en-US','en-GB'

If you want to add additional languages to the existing ones, you can use this code snippet:

$CurrentLanguageList = Get-WinUserLanguageList

$NewLanguageList = [System.Collections.ArrayList]::new()

foreach($Language in $CurrentLanguageList.LanguageTag){
    $NewLanguageList.Add($Language) | Out-Null
}

#Adding new languages here
$NewLanguageList.Add('de-DE') | Out-Null
$NewLanguageList.Add('ru-RU') | Out-Null

Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList $NewLanguageList

Upvotes: 0

mklement0
mklement0

Reputation: 438073

The problem is that you're using New-WinUserLanguageList twice, with each call returning a list, so that $langlist = $lang_en, $lang_ru mistakenly created an array of (single-item) lists rather than a single list with two items, which caused the (nonsensically-sounding) type-mismatch error you saw.

Very awkwardly, however, cmdlet New-WinUserLanguageList only allows you to specify one language, even though it returns a list type ([Collections.Generic.List[Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.WinUserLanguage]]).

That is, the following should work, but doesn't:

# Try to create the list with *2* entries
$langlist = New-WinUserLanguageList en-gb, ru  # !! Doesn't work, parameter type is [string]

Instead, you have to initialize with 1 language and then add additional ones later, using the .Add() method:

# Create the list with initially just 'en-gb'...
$langlist = New-WinUserLanguageList en-gb

# ... and then add the other language, 'ru'
# Because the list is strongly typed, it is sufficient to pass the language
# identifier, which implicitly creates a new
# [Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.WinUserLanguage] instance.
$langlist.Add('ru')

# Now you can modify the properties of $langlist[0] (en-gb)
# and $langlist[1] (ru)
# ...

# ... and pass the list of modified languages to Set-WinUserLanguageList:
Set-WinUserLanguageList $langlist

Alternatively, to avoid the .Add() call, you could have used:

$langlist = (New-WinUserLanguageList en-gb)[0], (New-WinUserLanguageList ru)[0]

Even though $langlist is then technically an array (a [System.Object[]] instance whose elements are of type Microsoft.InternationalSettings.Commands.WinUserLanguage), passing it to Set-WinUserLanguageList works, because it is implicitly converted to the required list type.

Upvotes: 2

JosefZ
JosefZ

Reputation: 30123

Please check the following commented code snippets:

PS D:\PShell> ### Type mismatch

$langlist=$lang_en,$lang_ru

### Note the difference in type:

$langlist.gettype().Name                   ### Object[]

(Get-WinUserLanguageList).gettype().Name   ### List`1

Object[]
List`1

PS D:\PShell> ### Use the following:

$langlist = Get-WinUserLanguageList
$langlist.Clear()
$langlist.Add($lang_en[0])
$langlist.Add($lang_ru[0])

$langlist.gettype().Name                   ### List`1

List`1

PS D:\PShell> <### The next cmdlet should work now:

set-winuserlanguagelist $langlist

<##>

Upvotes: 2

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