Changing keyboard layout without changing ReactOS language

[gabrielilardi]

This is a quick practical note for those of you who wanted to change the keyboard layout not changing the language ReactOS is displayed in.
(You'll have already noticed that changing language from regional settings in control panel changes the language and keyboard layout together).
This is a temporary workaround since ReactOS seems not to implement at the moment the correct way to handle the keyboard layouts, until this will be fixed and the input.dll will be finished you can use this method:

Open regedit and browse to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NLS\Language

It will be enough to change "Default" (at the bottom) from 0409 (this is the number if you chose English) to the code matching your desired language, use this list:

PS: You should reboot for the changes to take effect.

00000402 Bulgarian
0000041a Croatian
00000405 Czech
00000406 Danish
00000413 Dutch (Standard)
00000813 Dutch (Belgian)
00000409 English (United States)
00000809 English (United Kingdom)
00001009 English (Canadian)
00001409 English (New Zealand)
00000c09 English (Australian)
0000040b Finnish
0000040c French (Standard)
0000080c French (Belgian)
0000100c French (Swiss)
00000c0c French (Canadian)
00000407 German (Standard)
00000807 German (Swiss)
00000c07 German (Austrian)
00000408 Greek
0000040e Hungarian
0000040f Icelandic
00001809 English (Irish)
00000410 Italian (Standard)
00000810 Italian (Swiss)
00000414 Norwegian (Bokmal)
00000814 Norwegian (Nynorsk)
00000415 Polish
00000816 Portuguese (Standard)
00000416 Portuguese (Brazilian)
00000418 Romanian
00000419 Russian
0000041b Slovak
00000424 Slovenian
0000080a Spanish (Mexican)
0000040a Spanish (Traditional Sort)
00000c0a Spanish (Modern Sort)
0000041d Swedish
0000041f Turkish

[Hunkadoodledoo]

Thanks for the tip! Is there a code for the English Dvorak layout? Thanks again!

[gabrielilardi]

Thanks for the tip! Is there a code for the English Dvorak layout? Thanks again!

Wow, I didn't even know that layout existed, I had to research to know what it was about. As I said ReactOS isn't implementing the keyboard layout settings as Windows does, so I don't know if there's a way to switch the keyboard layout to a dvorak one, in Windows this setting would be saved under: HKCU\Keyboard Layout\Preload

This key isn't used at the moment by ReactOS, and the tip I gave changes the keyboard layout in ros.
Anyway, I've found this page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/139177

Try to see if the codes listed there do the trick.

[GreatLord]

This key controll the primary keyboard in windows and reactos,
keyboard switching are diffent story how it works.

[pmrtvcom]

ReactOS needs to have a UK Dvorak layout too. It is basically the UK Scholes (QWERTY) with the keys rearranged as per US Dvorak. ' is still paired with @, 2 with ", 3 with £, 4 has € on AltGr... # and ~ have their own, unmoved key.

Of course, this might be easy to do, one day.