Retrieve the original installation language for Windows installs

Windows

To do an in-situ upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 your install medium needs to be of the same language as the one you originally installed your Windows with... or not?

On their website Microsoft says you need to pick the language you're currently using, but when you try to do an in-situ upgrade, it asks for the language you installed your original copy with.

Current or active language?

I suggest to download both 😇 and use the one that works 🤷‍♂️

(I'll update this if I run into this situation.)

Background

I'm struggling with my Windows 10 / 11 licenses and how to migrate them. Which, in turn, led me to looking into in-place upgrades on Windows 10 machines before they become obsolete, so I can rescue any retail licenses.

For that I required Windows 11 install media (ISO) and the almighty Rufus. But... there are complications.

Original install language

So, how do you know what you used when you originally installed your Windows? You can retrieve that information from the registry - even if you later added language packs, or did the long update chain from 7 to 8 to 10 (and now 11).

This can be found in the registry:

KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language

Then look for

InstallLanguage

Or, from CMD:

C:\> reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language" /v Installlanguage

 

The above will give you a number which you can look up in a table like below:

(Click image to enlarge)

You'll find the full table here.

Download the right version

Funny enough, that table gives you a hundred or so variants on English, but when you try to download the ISO, Microsoft only offers two flavors...

I've bought my licenses over the years in different languages, US, UK, and Dutch. I've seen the following codes in real life:

• English US - 0409

And I expect to run into these:

• English UK - 0809
• English International - 0009 (for everything non-US, but it's a guess)
• Dutch - 0013 (or perhaps 0413?)