Remove automatically added keyboard inputs and prevent them from coming back (Windows 10)

(Credits to Jonno whose answer led me to the solution)

Go to systray and open Language preferences. Click Options for each language that has an extra kayboard that you want to remove.

In Keyboards section click Add a keyboard and select a keyboard that appears in your systray and which you want to remove. This adds a new input option for the selected language. After you add the keyboard, click it and click on a Remove button. After that, the keyboard should disappear also from systray.

(Note that I did not see a keyboard which I want remove in Keyboards section thus I had to add it first to be able to remove it afterwards.)

EDIT: bugybunny's answer helped me to prevent keyboard layouts from magically appearing whenever I connected to my PC via remote desktop (which they regularly did).


I've duplicated your issue, it's quite simple to fix (Ignore my ENG keyboard layout):

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Click Language Preferences

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Click United States - then Options

This keyboard (Czech - QWERTY) is your ENG - CSQ, remove it.

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Go back, go to options for Čeština

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Remove Czech - QWERTZ -> This is CES - CS

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This should now be back as you wanted. The languages are the parent of the keyboards, you can specify different keyboard layouts per language.

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Edit: It seems that if these keyboards don't exist in these pages, adding them and then removing them resolves the issue.


Note: I just switched from de_DE to de_CH and had to repeat the steps. So this has to be done every time you add a new layout and switch to it.

Answer is similar to @berm’s one. Just as info: I have Windows 10 (1903 at the moment but had the problem for many many builds since I‘ve switched to Windows 10) with German (Germany) keyboard layout added under the language English (United States) which is also my Windows display language. Regional format is German (Switzerland). Windows kept adding the layouts

  • English (US)
  • German (Switzerland)
  • French (Switzerland)

Now for the fix. Go to Welcome screen and new user account settings.

This might differ from build to build but I could get it under Windows 10, 1903 by

  1. Opening the Control Panel,
  2. Click on Region Region settings
  3. Switch to tab Administrative in the now opened dialog
  4. Click on button Copy settings… Region -> Administrative

Welcome screen and new user account settings dialog will open. Then follow these steps

  1. Check both boxes at the bottom of the dialog Welcome screen and new user account settings dialog

  2. Restart (log off and log in again might be enough, would restart to be safe). IIRC Windows will tell you about restarting if this setting differs from the current one, which was the case for me.

  3. After the restart, Windows added the unwanted layouts again. Follow @Jan Palas‘ answer on how to remove them again by adding them and deleting them.

  4. Restart again or log off/log in again

  5. Profit and hopefully have a not so crappy Windows anymore. Haven‘t had the problem for almost a week now which is a miracle.