How to remove Unwanted Locale (Keyboard) from the Language Bar

After installing updates, you may find unknown locale(s), such as QAA-Latn or QAC-Latn, when you click the Language bar, as seen in the screenshot below.

However, the QAC and QAA entries do not appear in the list of languages when you open Settings → Time & Language → Language. You wonder how to remove the unknown keyboard languages from the listing.

Resolution

Step 1: Remove the unwanted keyboard layout

Using PowerShell, you can remove those unknown keyboard layouts automatically.

1. Start PowerShell as administrator.
2. Run the following command:

   Get-WinUserLanguageList

3. Press Enter.
   
   (The Get-WinUserLanguageList cmdlet returns the current user language settings. These settings include input method, spelling setting, text prediction setting, and handwriting input mode.)
4. In this case, you may want to retain en-US and en-IN languages and delete the remaining ones. To do so, run the following command:

   Set-WinUILanguageOverride en-US, en-IN -Force

   Note: To retain only en-US, you’d type “Set-WinUILanguageOverride en-US -Force“
5. Now, click the Language bar to see if the changes are effective.
   

That’s it! The English (United States) and English (India) entries are retained. The QAA-Latn and QAC-Latn entries are removed.

$List = Get-WinUserLanguageList
$List.Add("qac-Latn")
$List.Add("qaa-Latn")
Set-WinUserLanguageList $List -Force

$List = Get-WinUserLanguageList
$Lang = $List | where LanguageTag -eq "qac-Latn"
$List.Remove($Lang)
$Lang = $List | where LanguageTag -eq "qaa-Latn"
$List.Remove($Lang)
Set-WinUserLanguageList $List -Force

Step 2: Prevent unwanted keyboard layout from being added

The next step is to stop the keyboard layout from being added after a restart.

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Click “Region”. If you’re in Category view, click Clock and Region → Region.
3. Select the “Administrative” tab.
4. Click “Copy settings.”
   
5. Select the “Welcome screen and system accounts” and “New user accounts” checkboxes.

   

6. Click OK.

This copies the display language, input language, format, and location settings of the current user to the logon desktop and new user accounts.

That’s it. The unwanted keyboard layout shouldn’t come back after the reboot.