It was suggested that I post this here after not getting any answers in the Windows 7 forum. I have been asked to install Japanese on all the computers at the school I work at so that kids are able to type their assignments out using Japanese characters. I can do this by hand on my computer by enabling the Japanese keyboard under "Keyboards and Languages" "Change Keyboards" "Add" and add the new keyboard. This then enables the language bar and I can then toggle between English and Japanese by pressing "Alt" + "Shift" and then "Alt" + "~" to toggle between the Japanese character sets. The computers are running either Windows XP Pro or Windows 7 enterprise and group policy preferences are install onto all computers. How can I go about deploying/installing/enabling Japanese keyboard onto multiple computers so users are able to use Word and type in Japanese characters? We are in a domain with a mix of servers ranging from 2003, 2008 standard and enterprise as well as 2008 R2 enterprise as well as have WSUS patching the machines. Thanks

Hi, To achieve this goal, we have two options below: Option 1: Edit the registry via Registry Group Policy Preferences (GPP) Option 2: Edit the registry via logon scripts group policy String Value 1 of the following registry control the default keyboard. You may also add 2, 3 and others. HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload These values can be found from the following registry and String Value 00000411 is for Japanese. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\DosKeybCodes For more information, please refer to the following Microsoft KB article: The input locale does not type the chosen keyboard mapping in the MS-DOS window http://support.microsoft.com/?id=262283 If you encounter any difficulties when customizing the scripts, you may submit a new question in The Official Scripting Guys Forum! which is a best resource for scripting related issues. The Official Scripting Guys Forum! http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/ITCG/threads Regards,Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks for the reply Arthur_Li, I have made Japanese my default keyboard layout under the HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload string by adding a new string and setting it to 1 with a value of 00000411 and changing the existing string to 2 and shutting down my computer and restarting it to make sure the setting had taken effect. On the Windows 7 logon screen in the top left hand corner I have the option of choosing Japanese or English Australia (with Japanese now set as the default layout) however once I load into Windows itself I am not able to type in Japanese characters. The language bar does not appear in the bottom right corner of the system tray and pressing left Alt + Shift does not toggle the keyboard input from Japanese to English Australia or vise versa. Under “Text Services and Input Languages” the Japanese keyboard is also not installed only the English Australia (US) keyboard is.

Hi, Please check and customize the scripts the unattend.xml provides of the following TechNet blog: LP(MUI):How to add IME keyboards using the unattend .xml http://blogs.technet.com/b/yongrhee/archive/2009/09/11/lp-mui-how-to-add-ime-keyboards-using-the-unattend-xml.aspx For the Japanese language code, please also refer to the following MSDN article: Locale IDs, Input Locales, and Language Collections for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb895996.aspx After reading and understating the above articles, you may try to replace following scripts: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <!--en-US--> <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="0409:00000409" Default="true"/> <!--KO-Korean--> <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="0412:{A028AE76-01B1-46C2-99C4-ACD9858AE02F}{B5FE1F02-D5F2-4445-9C03-C568F23C99A1}"/> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With following scripts: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <!--JP-Japanese--> <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="0411:{03B5835F-F03C-411B-9CE2-AA23E1171E36}{A76C93D9-5523-4E90-AAFA-4DB112F9AC76}"/> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regards, Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Arthur_Li, that has done the trick for us, we are running this as a start up script and have run into a problem with group policy blocking it because of users not having access to control panel but we are working through that (trying to see if we can allow access to only that part of control panel). Thanks.