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Language bar button missing and exhibiting odd behaviour

Hello.

It appears as if my language bar is broken. I am running Windows XP x64 and the following facts are given:

  • Files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai) are installed as per Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages Tab -> Supplemental language support group box.
  • Files for East Asian languages are installed as per a checkbox below aforementioned option aswell.
  • Code page conversion tables for various languages, including the language I want supported - Japanese - are enabled.
  • Advanced text services are NOT disabled (=enabled) as per Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages Tab -> Details... -> Advanced -> System Configuration group box. There are no other options in that place.
  • German (Germany) (DE) using German keyboard is added as a language/installed service under Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages Tab -> Details... -> Settings -> Installed services group box.
  • Japanese (JP) using German keyboard is added as a language/installed service as well.
  • Default input language is set to "German (Germany) - German".
  • Language bar is set to be "shown on the desktop" and "show additional icons in taskbar"
  • The CTFMON program is set to autostart and does autostart correctly as per MSCONFIG and Task Manager.
  • The Task Scheduler Service is started and set to start automatically.
  • My version of WinXP x64 is in English.
  • The language bar has worked properly sometime in the past on this very machine and system installation.

It appears I managed to get the language bar into an incorrect state that cannot be returned back to normal behaviour. Whenever I open the Language Bar Settings dialog with the 4 checkboxes and hit ok the language bar will show for a short moment (about a third second) and disappear again. Through frequent hitting of enter and dragging the language bar I was able to stick it to the taskbar. However, THE VERY BUTTON that reads the current language (either "DE" or "JP" for me usually) is missing. The restore button and the downarrow button for popping a context menu as well as the help button with a question mark inside are visible. Interesting fact: If I disable "show additional language bar icons in the taskbar" ALL icons related to the language bar do disappear. However, rightclicking the empty space where the language bar used to be will still pop the context menu related to it. I can not change the input language through the key sequence option. Nothing happens.

I hope this description of my problem is sufficient and someone can help. It's really bugging me.

Thanks in advance,

Zyl

Hi Zyl,

Let’s follow these methods and check if it helps.

Method 1

You may try showing the language bar in the task bar and check if it functions correctly.

Method 2

You may configure the computer in clean boot and check if the issue persists. It will start Windows XP by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs and helps to eliminate software conflicts.

The following link has steps showing how to perform clean boot: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353
Note: Please ensure that the computer is set to start as usual by following the section ‘Steps to configure Windows to use a Normal startup state’ from the article: How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

Hope the information helps. Please post back and let us know.

Regards
Debleena S
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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Thanks for the quick answer.

Unfortunately that didn't help. On the opposite, the language bar wouldn't show at all unless I manually started the ctfmon process.

I even found a bug in the dialog programming. When you set to hide all Microsoft services and hit "Disable all", disabling only the non-Microsoft services, the "Load System Services"-checkbox under the "General"-tab will be entirely unchecked instead of in ambiguous/"halfway-checked" state.

Toggling the language bar from the taskbar context menu did not cause the appearance to be different, either.

Are there manual procedures to reset all language bar related data, e.g. through registry editing?

Full System description is "Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version 2003 Service Pack 2".

(As to my knowledge, no SP3 exists for the x64 version)

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Hi Zyl,

Let’s follow these methods and check if the issue persists.

Method 1

For this particular issue, there is a hotfix available you may contact our  Microsoft Customer Service  & provide them the kb 825033 article which contains the hotfix.

Method 2

You may also customize the language options by following the steps in the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177561

Method 3

If the above methods don’t help, you may uninstall the language bar and then reinstall it.

Hope the information helps. Please post back and let us know.

Regards
Debleena S
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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I previously tried to reinstall the language bar but it would not change its behaviour.

What a drag. I went and also added Russian language, and suddenly the language button would pop up. However, no Japanese in there, and even when selecting Russian language the IME would not start working. I'd still get normal latin characters all the time. Randomly Japanese would still show despite it not being in the list (which speaks for my broken-object-state-assumption once more) yet I'd only have a "Caps" and a "Kana" button. Toggling the later had no influence on the input. There used to be 3 icons like "input keyboard", "input mode" and "input style" or so, but instead there are these two small buttons, and only at random. So either the thing is just broken or Microsoft staff did not learn much about HCI or comparable discipline in their college time.

I'd like to thank you for your efforts, but I found an online IME which is working properly, so I am just going to use that from here on out and give up on Windows' native IME feature.

 

Best regards,

Zyl

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Last updated December 25, 2019 Views 2,025 Applies to: