Microsoft has released the Windows 7 RTM (Release to Manufacturing) language packs yesterday. Therefore users running Windows 7 RTM should now see 34 new optional updates in Windows Update. The supported languages are:
Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese – Simplified, Chinese – Traditional – Hong Kong, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian Latin, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian
Microsoft stated on The Windows Blog that Traditional Chinese – Taiwan will be released at a later date, but didn’t specify when.
Windows 7 RTM Language Packs available through Windows Update
Language packs are only available to Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise users as mentioned in the Windows 7 Compare Editions page. Users running the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) can already download and install the RC language packs.
How to Install Language Packs
After downloading the language pack you want to install via Windows Update:
- Click on Start
- Type “display language” in the search bar
- Choose “Install or uninstall display languages”
- (if the search doesn’t return any results, type ”%SYSTEMROOT%System32lpksetup.exe” in the search bar)
- The Language Pack Installer window would appear with two options.
- Choose “Install display languages”
- Click “Yes” if a UAC (User Account Control) message appears
- Choose “Launch Windows Update”
- Windows Update window will show up.
- Select the language pack from the optional downloads (even if you’ve already downloaded it!)
- Click “Install updates”
- Again choose “Yes” if a UAC message appears.
Windows 7 will then start installing the language pack. It might take a while, so you’ll have to wait!
Installing a Language Pack
After installation is complete, you can choose the language pack you want to use from the Control Panel. Here’s how:
- Click on Start
- Type “region” in the search bar
- Choose “Region and Language”
- (if the search doesn’t return any results, open the ”Run…” then type: “C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe C:WindowsSystem32shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL C:WindowsSystem32intl.cpl”)
- Go to “Keyboards and Languages”
- Click on the combo box under “Choose a display language”
- Choose the language pack you want to switch to
- Click “Apply”
How to Hide Language Packs from Windows Update
I personally don’t like seeing “34 optional updates are available” every time I open Windows Update. If don’t want the language packs to appear in Windows Update, here’s how to hide them:
- Open Windows Update
- Click on the text (usually in blue) that says the number of downloads available
- Select the language packs you want to hide (or click on “Windows 7 Ultimate Language Packs” to select all of them)
- Right-click and choose “Hide updates”
- Click OK
Hiding Updates in Windows 7
That’s it, now these update will no longer appear unless you restore them. How? Simply click on “Restore hidden updates” on left side of the Windows update window, select the updates and click “Restore”. If prompted with a UAC message choose “Yes”. This works with other updates as well.
