File Explorer Menus and Layout Reversed, Becoming Right-to-Left

Here is an interesting issue that appeared in the Microsoft forums. File Explorer showed up a mirrored or reversed layout, that is Right-to-Left as in Arabic versions. Also, the right-click menu options showed some Arabic text for some users.

It turned out to be WinRar that caused the UI and menus to go Right-to-Left. This problem seems to exist particularly in WinRar version 5.31. And WinRar’s Release notes mention the interface improvements for Right-to-Left languages. So something has gone haywire in v5.31 during the recent code change.

Update (Feb 25, 2016): This issue occurs if the user has installed the Arabic version of WinRar on the English-language version of Windows. To resolve the issue without uninstalling WinRar, delete all the *.lng files in the WinRAR folder, which is located at:

C:\Program Files\WinRar

or

C:\Program Files (x86)\WinRar

…depending upon the version of WinRar you installed and the bitness of your OS.

After deleting all the files with the .lng extension, restart Windows.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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