How to Fix Can’t Remove Layout in Windows 10

Can’t seem to remove the keyboard layout in your Windows 10 PC?

Windows 10 allows you to change your keyboard layout and preferred system language. The need may arise for you to switch to a different keyboard language, like those with special characters and symbols. You may even prefer other keyboard layouts, like DVORAK and AZERTY.

Deleting them may also be necessary. Whether you don’t need that keyboard layout anymore, or perhaps your system automatically switches to a different layout. However, removing a keyboard layout can sometimes get tricky. Even after deleting, the keyboard layout may persist, and your system may block you from deleting it entirely.

Whatever the case may be, there are multiple ways to delete and permanently remove your unwanted keyboard layouts. If you have any other problems with your keyboard, such as enabling or disabling text prediction, we have an article for that too. In this guide, we will focus on how to remove keyboard layouts in Windows 10.

Let’s begin! 

1. Check Your Language Settings.

Your device’s operating system defaults to the preferred language of your current region. Your preferred language also defaults to a certain keyboard layout. For English, the default keyboard layout is usually QWERTY.

When changing your language, your system will also change your keyboard layout to your current language. Therefore, you’ll automatically add keyboard layouts to your system when changing your region or preferred language. Checking the options for your current language will allow you to remove undesired keyboard layouts.

Here’s how you can start to remove the keyboard layout in Windows 10:

1. Press the Windows, and I key at the same time to open your system settings. 
2. Once opened, select Time and Language.

3. On the sidebar at the left, select the Language tab.

4. Scroll down until you find your current language under Preferred languages.

5. Select your current language and click the Options button.

6. Once the Language options have been opened, look for the undesired keyboard layouts under the Keyboards section.

7. Select the unwanted keyboard layouts and press Remove.

After removing your unwanted keyboard layouts, they should stop appearing as a keyboard layout option for your currently preferred language. If this doesn’t work and they still reappear, continue reading to the next solution below. 

2. Delete Your Keyboard Layout Registry String.

The Windows Registry is a database that stores keys and values akin to folders and files. A keyboard layout’s data values and settings are stored in one of these keys. By deleting the keyboard layout’s information, you can delete the keyboard layout itself from your system.

This is done by opening the Registry Editor. As the name implies, you can use it to edit and manage data found within your system’s registry. Deleting the data for the keyboard layout is quick and simple and can be done in just a minute or two.

The steps are found below:

1. Press both the Windows and R keys to open the Run window. Enter RegEdit into the search bar and press OK.

2. Once the Registry Editor is opened, navigate through the registry by entering HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload into the location path.

3. Look up Keyboard identifiers on a search engine like Google and look for your specific keyboard layout.
4. On the right side of the Registry Editor, you’ll find registry strings that contain information for your different keyboard layouts. Take note of the hexadecimal value found under Data.
5. Using your Keyboard identifiers list, look for the keyboard layout you would like to delete. Its hexadecimal value should match one of the registry strings.
6. Right-click the keyboard layout string you would like to remove, and press Delete.
7. Exit the Registry Editor and reboot your system. 

After rebooting, your undesired keyboard layout should be gone. This permanently deletes the keyboard layout you wanted to remove, as it deletes the registry string of the layout itself. 

3. Delete Your Display Language Within the Windows Folder.

Despite all the fixes above, your keyboard layout may keep coming back every time you restart your system. There’s a reason for this. Keyboard layouts keep coming back due to your display languages reinstalling them into your system. 

So, a last resort attempt to removing your keyboard layout is to delete the display language that reinstalls it from your Windows folder. This deletes data directly from your root drive, ensuring that all the information for your display language and keyboard layout is removed.

Do note, however, that doing this process is risky as it involves deleting a folder directly from the Windows folder, which may cause errors and crashes for your system. Additionally, it also deletes the display language along with the keyboard layout. Therefore, only proceed with this process if all the above solutions did not work.

Here are the steps to delete your display language:

1. Open your File Explorer.
2. At the sidebar on the left, scroll down until you find This PC. Please select it.

3. Once selected, open your root drive by selecting the C: drive.
4. Look for a folder named Windows and open it by double-clicking.

5. Look up an ISO language code list on your search engine, and look for the display language you would like to delete.
6. Inside the Windows folder, scroll until you find the language code of the undesired display language. For English (United States), this should be en-US.
7. Finally, delete the display language folder by simply right-clicking on the folder and selecting Delete.

By properly following the steps above, you have now successfully removed the keyboard layout in Windows 10.

4. Delete Your Display Language Using Lpksetup.exe.

Lpksetup.exe is a system tool found within Windows 10 that allows users to perform unattended or silent-mode operations related to language packs. You can also use this to delete your system language, along with the unwanted keyboard layout. 

Simply press the Windows and R key, input lpksetup, and select Uninstall display languages to delete the language that reinstalls your unwanted keyboard layout. This should successfully remove your undesired keyboard layout.

That’s all for now. We hope the fixes we guided you through have helped you resolve your problems removing a keyboard layout.

If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂