Change keyboard layout remotely?

[Duane_Dibbley]

Howdy all,

 

All the desktops in our school have recently been re-imaged. Unfortunately the keyboard layout has gone to US instead of UK, as well as the regional settings.

 

Tried setting them with GPO but doesn't seem to have worked. Anybody know how to do this with a batch file or something similar. We use Altiris to deploy stuff remotely. Server2008r2, XP clients.

 

Would appreciate the help, as the HT is getting annoyed that he can't use the £ symbol :S

 

Thanks

[EvLPhenom]

Could you not find the correct registry setting and push that via a startup script?

[Duane_Dibbley]

Could you not find the correct registry setting and push that via a startup script?

 

How would I go about doing this? Think i've found the correct reg setting, but not had much experience in scripts etc. *embarrassment at lack of obviously fundamental knowledge*

[EvLPhenom]

ok, i will dig out an old script that we have used in the past for something similar. can you drop me a pm and with your email address and i will email it over when i get a chance.

[EvLPhenom]

Email Sent

[plexer]

Is the scruipt something you'd care to share for others in the same issue?

 

Ben

[tommej]

This sounds like a great practical joke.

[Demonic69]

I'm pretty sure this is not possible. You should have set the region settings before you captured your image. I've tried GPO with the new 2008 extensions and registry settings galore with no luck. Re-imaging with a properly configure image was the only way.

 

Would be good to know if anyone gets this sorted though.

[EvLPhenom]

Is the scruipt something you'd care to share for others in the same issue?

 

Ben

 

Not a problem if it works, but haven't heard anything back from him yet.

[Michael]

It's a good question. I'm not sure if there is an automated or scripted way. One solution would be to re-sysprep the machines as they are with an updated answer file. You may need to re-install AV software afterwards, but of course you should be able to re-deploy that no problem.

 

You could create an XCOPY command (within your login script), so when logging in as an admin, files are copied to C:\Sysprep on each machine. Run Sysprep and all being well keyboards/languages should then be set to UK.

[plexer]

It can be done manually by chaging the settings in control panel - regional and language options so it must be possible to change it after the event automatically.

 

Ben

[Duane_Dibbley]

Sorry i've left this so long. Tried reg settings and scripts galore to no avail. Managed to get it to change with a script, but only for admin and not permanently. In the end used Altiris to push out a script (credit not due to me...had help) -

 

REM Change US Regional Settings to UK

rundll32.exe shell32,Control_RunDLL intl.cpl,,/f:"\\servername\express\region.txt"

 

where region.txt contains -

 

[RegionalSettings]

LanguageGroup=1

SystemLocale=00000809

UserLocale=00000809

InputLocale=0809:00000809

UserLocale_DefaultUser=809

InputLocale_DefaultUser=809

 

Confirmed working for keyboard settings, but not all regional settings.