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Whatistobe
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Changing VW Language for Windows Text in Workstation 12

I've found other posts with this problem that had different solutions. At present all the language is in Italian, and I'm trying to get it to English.

It's an Italian version of the VMWare software which means that the default language is Italian. I tried the method of changing the folder name of the files in the "messages" folder in order to get the software to default to English after rebooting VMWare. It just defaults to Italian.

Worse still I find that in the desktop "messages" folder there is only Japanese and Mandarin while in the virtual windows VMWare "messages" folder there is no English folder. There are instead German (de), French (fr), Spanish (es), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Mandarin (zh_CN), Taiwanese (zh_TW). (I may be wrong about the languages indicated by the abbreviations, but there is no (en)). I'm not sure why the Italians who installed it would go out of their way to eliminate English as an option, but I don't see it there.

I've also gone to the Control Panel/ Languages/ to set everything to English. It was already set to it. "Formato" is set to "Inglese (Stati Uniti)"; "Localita corrente" is set to "Stati Uniti"; under "Cambia Tastiere" it's set to "Inglese (Stati Uniti) - Stati Uniti"; and under "cambia impostazioni locali del Sistema" it's set to "inglese (Stati Uniti)". Everywhere in the Languages Control Panel. There's also an icon in the lower right corner of the Virtual Windows desktop screen that reads "EN" with a "hover-over" message of "Inglese (Stati Uniti)". However, when I open the "Copia Impostazioni" ("copy settings") tab it opens to a window that shows what language everything is in listed as such:

Utente Corrente (Current User):

Lingua di visualizzazione (display language):     italiano
Lingua di input (input language):                         Inglese (Stati Uniti) - Stati Uniti
Formato (Format):                                               Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Localita (Localization):                                        Stati Uniti

Schermata iniziale (Startup screen):

Lingua di visualizzazione (display language):     italiano
Lingua di input (input language):                         Inglese (Stati Uniti) - Stati Uniti
Formato (Format):                                               Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Localita (Localization):                                        Stati Uniti

Nuovi account utente (New user account):

Lingua di visualizzazione (display language):     italiano
Lingua di input (input language):                         Inglese (Stati Uniti) - Stati Uniti
Formato (Format):                                               Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Localita (Localization):                                        Stati Uniti

So there is still some setting that might change the "display language" to English, but everything else is set to English without affecting anything, even the startup screen messages.

If anyone can assist me this would be helpful. There is actually another issue regarding this laptop's failure to recognize connected network devices, but until I can read the language of the laptop (without resorting to Google translate for everything), it's that much harder to troubleshoot.

Thanks

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bluefirestorm
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I run a Windows 10 with English language settings.

There is a --locale parameter that you can pass to the VMware Workstation shortcut.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale zh_CN

user interface and messages are displayed in Simplified Chinese

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale ja

user interface and messages are displayed in Japanese

What does the vmware.log of any VM show for UserLocale now (there are two of them, look at the second one)?

vmx| I125: Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=windows-1252 UserLocale=NULL

If the --locale is not passed, UserLocale appears as NULL.

So I guess the trick is to find out what is the name to give for English.

You could try en or en-us or en_us or windows-1252

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale en

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale en_us

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale en-us

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe" --locale windows-1252

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Whatistobe
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Thanks for the reply!

In case it helps I'm on Windows 10 for the computer, but Window 7 for the VW.

Yes, the VMware.log showed exactly the line you mention:

"Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=windows-1252 UserLocale=NULL"

As to your suggestion, I've tried adding to the "Target" designation in the shortcut for VMware these:

--locale en

--locale en_us

--locale us

--locale en-us

No change. Restarting VW doesn't make it English. Or did I miss something? I also tried renaming the "ja" folder in the Messages folder to "en_US" to see if it would come up in Japanese. Also no change.

Mind you, the main desktop for the laptop is entirely in English and all the settings for locality and language are all English as well. It's definitely only the VMware that's in Italian. One thing about there not being any "English"/"en_us"/etc. file in the "messages" folder is that it's possible that the default is always English- that they don't make an Italian (or Japanese, etc) default. But it's not changing to English, so...

I've discovered a few other attempted fixes online as well, none of which have panned out.

1. There was this statement: "http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_esx35u3_rel_notes.html#langpackYou set en_US   as DefaultLocale in config.xml"

It's not a solution but I wondered if I could check the config.xml file for VMware to ensure it's set to "en_US". I couldn't find a "config.xml" file in the VMware directory, but I found a file named vmPerfmon in which there is this line:

[languages]
009=English

So that's already set to English, whatever it is. That file is from the hard drive VMware folder. There is no such file in the VMware folder accessed in VW.

2. Another suggestion was to add "-org" to the folder name of those languages in the "messages" folder. I did that for every folder in the "messages" folder for both the regular desktop and VW desktop. Still Italian on restart.

3. Apparently you can check on what the target language file is using by finding the information in the RegEdit and, if not English, change it from "...VMware\messages\it" (or whatever) to "...VMware\messages_". That again seems to presume that the default would be English. However, I couldn't find the location of the file where it presumably shows the directory path- not in the Windows sections nor in the VMware sections of any slot in RegEdit for both the regular and VW systems. So that hasn't been tested yet.

4. Web browsers apparently enable language selection for VMware. I looked at the "lengua" section of a browser on the VW and it was already set to "Inglese (Stati Uniti) [en-US]". It also had Italian listed so I deleted it, but English was already the top of the list as well. On the regular browser (not VW) it linked to the Win10 Language Control Panel. There were two sections with drop-down options between English and "Use Language List (recommended)". They were set to "Use Language list", so I changed both to English. No change after restarting the browser and PC.

5. The last notable mention on the subject was this as a reply to someone stuck with French:

"No, you cannot change this. Microsoft Windows exists in versions specific to languages and regions. If you have the French version of Windows 7 Professional, you cannot change its user interface language. You have to purchase a copy of the English version of Windows 7 Professional, delete your French copy, and make a new installation with the English version.

The alternative is to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, which costs more money, and which can provide the user interface in different languages. The Microsoft Windows 7 Version Comparison Chart says that only Windows 7 Ultimate lets you "Work in the language of your choice and switch between any of 35 languages."

It goes without saying that Microsoft will only sell you Windows 7 Ultimate at the upgrade price if your copy of Windows 7 Professional is legally purchased and registered."

Which would be miserable if true. I suspect it isn't only because that applies to actual Windows, not VMware Windows, but perhaps it does. Particularly as I'm getting nowhere in my attempts to change things.

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Whatistobe
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Another thing I noticed from the VMware.log file was this recurring pattern:

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: LOCALE windows-1252 -> NULL User=409 System=409

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=windows-1252 UserLocale=NULL

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.029-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.029-04:00| vmx| I125: FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

2018-06-25T14:19:50.029-04:00| vmx| I125: DictionaryLoad: Cannot open file "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\VMware\config.ini": The system cannot find the path specified.

2018-06-25T14:19:50.029-04:00| vmx| I125: Msg_Reset:

2018-06-25T14:19:50.029-04:00| vmx| I125: [msg.dictionary.load.openFailed] Cannot open file "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\VMware\config.ini": The system cannot find the path specified.

I checked for that DictionaryLoad config.ini file. There isn't even a VMware folder in the Roaming folder at that location. Also Default isn't the User that hosts the VMware, but I went into that AppData\Roaming path and didn't find a VMware folder there either. Nor in any other User directory. There's not even a "config.ini" file on this PC.

It's also possible to open the "VMware virtual machine configuration" file for the virtual machine profile in Notepad to check out the settings there, but upon inspection I didn't see anything related to relevant file pathing or language selection.

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bluefirestorm
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The way I understood your original post was that you were seeing VMware Workstation menu and messages in Italian and you wanted it to be in English. But from your subsequent replies, it looks like you seem to be saying that the Windows 7 VM guest OS that is showing as Italian and you want it to be in English. These are two different issues.

Furthermore, the log lines you posted, would indicate that it is already in US English. The language locale 409 is US English.

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: LOCALE windows-1252 -> NULL User=409 System=409

2018-06-25T14:19:50.028-04:00| vmx| I125: Msg_SetLocaleEx: HostLocale=windows-1252 UserLocale=NULL

The locale setting to the shortcut only affects the VMware Workstation software menu and messages but not the guest OS itself. See the screenshot below with the VMware Workstation menus and messages in Japanese. But the guest OS will always run in the language that it has been installed with.

If your issue is with the language interface of the guest OS running in the VM, the problem and therefore solution is not with VMware Workstation software. To change the user interface language itself for Windows OS, you will need the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) pack. Microsoft has been providing an MUI pack since Windows 2000 but the the MUI pack was not available for retail purchase.

For Windows 7, the MUI pack appears to be available only for Ultimate and Enterprise editions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2483139/windows-7-service-pack-1-language-packs-are-availab...

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Whatistobe
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Belated reply and belated thanks!

Yes, it was the OS7 on VMware that was in Italian, not English. It still is.

The link you provided is helpful for a normal case, but I'm at a new impasse: the solution requires that I access the internet to update Windows 7 but there is only a LAN connection available from within the VMware Windows 7. This means I can't directly update the copy of Windows 7 that's being hosted by VMWare. The laptop itself is running on Windows 10 so I can't use it to gain access to the language file I need, and it seems as if Microsoft isn't releasing the files separately for me to download on Windows 10 and transfer to the VMware Windows 7 via a shared folder. The only way Microsoft offers to add a language pack fie is through the update process.

There IS an option to install a language file from within the "Language and Region" Control Panel, but I haven't found a method of obtaining the English file. Perhaps there's another way.

But of course this is not strictly a VMware question anymore. I may need to find a way to get the WiFi network working on the VMware in order to be able to directly update the Windows 7.

In any case thanks for your input.

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