How to change the keyboard layout at the Windows XP login screen

Question

I have a Dell computer with Windows XP Home Edition on it. Yesterday I was fooling around with trying to make my computer read Japanese characters. So buy accident I changed the keyboard layout to Japanese. After a reboot I tried to enter my password but it wasn't accepted. The layout was still set to Japanese.

How can I change the keyboard layout at the Windows XP login screen?

Solution

On the Windows XP login screen you can switch between installed keyboard layouts by pressing Alt + Shift

If that does not work try the following:

1. get a recovery boot CD which allows you to edit the registry (for example BartPE)
2. boot off the recovery CD
3. start the registry editor
4. navigate to [HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Preload]
5. edit the 1 key to: 00020409 (US international)

Comments

[janai]

Tried this and didnt work

[Simon]

@janai sorry to hear that. It works on my system. Did you remove the original keyboard layout? Alt+Shift only switches between installed layouts!

[Simon]

@janai I just added a second solution. It is a bit more complicated but I hope this one works for you.

[DanteTheEgregore]

This solution was already posted by another user several months ago. OP said it didn't work.