How to forcefully Remove Language Pack on Windows 10 and Windows 11

Installing a language pack in Windows 10 or 11 is easy—but removing one can sometimes feel impossible. If you’ve ever tried uninstalling a stubborn language pack and hit a dead end, this guide is for you. Whether you’re cleaning up after a botched install or trying to declutter your system, here’s how to forcefully remove a language pack in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Why Language Packs Get Stuck

Language packs can become “stuck” when:

• They’re set as the default display language.
• System files rely on them.
• A previous uninstall was incomplete.
• They’re managed by group policy or enterprise settings.

You won’t always be able to remove them via Settings > Time & Language > Language—especially if you’re dealing with a corrupted or partially installed pack.

Step-by-Step: Forcefully Remove a Language Pack

⚠️ Before You Begin:

Make sure you have administrator rights on the machine. Also, set your preferred display language to something else if the one you want to remove is currently active.

1. Change Your Display Language

If the language you want to remove is set as the default, you’ll need to switch to another installed language first.

• Go to Settings > Time & Language > Language
• Choose another installed language and click Set as default
• Restart your PC

2. Use PowerShell to Remove the Language Pack

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator
   • Press Windows + X and select Windows PowerShell (Admin) or Terminal (Admin).
2. List Installed Language Packs: Get-WinUserLanguageList This will show a list of all languages currently installed.
3. Remove the Language You Don’t Want:
   Replace xx-XX with the language code (like fr-FR for French, de-DE for German): $LangList = Get-WinUserLanguageList $LangList.RemoveAll({$_.LanguageTag -eq "xx-XX"}) Set-WinUserLanguageList $LangList -Force

3. Use DISM to Remove Language Components

Even after PowerShell removes the user language list entry, components might still be hanging around.

Run this in PowerShell (Admin):

dism /Online /Get-Packages | findstr /i "LanguagePack"

You’ll get a list of installed language packs. Look for something like:

Package Identity : Microsoft-Windows-Client-Language-Pack-Package_fr-fr~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.1

To remove it:

dism /Online /Remove-Package /PackageName:Microsoft-Windows-Client-Language-Pack-Package_fr-fr~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.19041.1

Replace the PackageName with the exact string you got from your system.

4. Clean Up Language Features (Optional)

To remove additional features like handwriting or speech recognition related to that language:

Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*fr-FR*"} | Remove-WindowsCapability -Online

Replace fr-FR with your language code.

Final Restart and Check

After you’ve removed everything, restart your computer. Go back to Settings > Language and confirm the language is gone.

Conclusion

Force-removing a language pack in Windows 10 or 11 takes a few steps, but it’s absolutely doable with PowerShell and DISM. This is especially useful for IT admins managing multiple systems or users who just want to clean house.

If a language pack keeps reinstalling itself (common in enterprise environments), you may need to adjust Group Policy or Windows Update settings.

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