How to force keyboard layout other than the system language as default

I am operating my systems in English (i.e. the display language is set to US English) but unfortunately I am forced to use Swiss German keyboards (US keyboards are not available in Switzerland - at least not for these systems) ||-(
Since the System language is English the system always switches to the US keyboard layout after reboot or after waking up and I thus always first need to manually adjust the keyboard manually.

Is there any system setting or registry entry or some tool that I could use to permanently force the keyboard layout to be one that is different from the system´s default language? Defining Swiss German as the default keyboard also switches the system´s display language, so that´s NOT what I want...

Can you not remove all but the Swiss German keyboard from your display language? If you need to keep more than one keyboard, then Winkey+SpaceBar is a quick way to switch to your preferred keyboard after boot.



Click 'Remove' then all you'll have is...

Nope - for some reason the "Remove" is grayed out for the English keyboard. I assume, the keyboard matching the display language can not be removed or some similar built-in restriction.

Having to switch the keyboard once only would be OK, but there are a couple of "stubborn" applications (specifically the Office apps and the browser) which always switch back the keyboard to the system language and that's where things are *really* getting annoying!

mmo said:

Nope - for some reason the "Remove" is grayed out for the English keyboard. I assume, the keyboard matching the display language can not be removed or some similar built-in restriction.

Odd. Are you logged in with an administrator account? I was.

My screenshots were from an install of 'Windows 10 1703 English International'. In 'Settings > Time & language > Region & language' the display language is 'English (United Kingdom)' and there were no other languages added. Clicking on 'English' and selecting Options got me to the first screenshot, where it allowed me to add the Swiss keyboard and remove the English one, no restrictions there.

Aah! I think I finally got it, how this works!
I added the Swiss German keyboard as second keyboard an then I was able to remove the English keyboard. So I have two languages defined now but both with the same keyboard.

This seems to work now for the physical keyboard!

But the on-screen keyboard (one system is a tablet) still shows the US keyboard, not the Swiss keyboard, except when I switch the language, too.

So: half battle won, the other half still pending...