How to uninstall a .NET language pack for good?

Question

I've had the same problem as this guy for while, with Visual Studio showing me really annoying exceptions in French.

I've tried uninstalling the Microsoft .NET Framework (French), and although the immediate effect is as desired (exceptions are in english again), this darned pack just keeps coming back with every Windows update!

My operating system is in French, and it's not really imaginable to change the language since I think that would mean reinstalling Windows entirely.

Is it possible to permanently uninstall a .NET language pack?

Solution 1

Okay, turns out it really was Windows Update being annoying. For some obscure reason, it thinks language packs are important updates.

What I did was disable automatic updates, checked for updates, and choose to permanently hide this update. I don't know how long that will work though!

Microsoft, if you are reading this: please don't reinstall stuff that was manually uninstalled for a good reason! That's unexpected behavior and makes for a pretty bad user experience.

Solution 2

I know this is an old issue, but I just had similar issues, and maybe I could save some hours for someone else.

I suddenly got Norwegian text when having compilation errors in .NET, after installing a language pack for Norwegian spell checking.

I tired to uninstall the language pack, reinstall the English language pack, delete and reinstall the .NET framework, remove the language folder in %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework, and ran various repair tools etc. But unfortunately non of the solutions above worked for me.

I finally found out that deleting the *.Resources directories in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL did the trick.

An example would be

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\aspnet_compiler.Resources

(There are a whole bunch of directories)

There is also a GAC_MSIL located here C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL, but it was not necessary to delete the Resources directories here, to solve my issues.

Comments

[Florian Segginger]

My Visual Studio was already set to English, and there is no such language folder in my .NET folder (probably because I uninstalled the language pack again this morning). However I'm pretty sure that as soon as I will install updates the language pack will come back :(

[A1985]

I'm wondering, because I actually thought all those language packs are optional. I'd try the second part (deleting the folder from above paths), as soon as the update has been installed again. I believe that this would solve your problem, because it's not an uninstall and Windows might think, that the Update is still on your PC - even though it's contents have been removed.

[A1985]

Maybe check manually for updates and see if the update shows up again - and if so install it and try above steps.

[Florian Segginger]

Actually, I realize now it just installs itself! I didn't even do any windows update or anything, and all of a sudden I'm seeing my exception messages in french again!

[A1985]

Erm, am I correct, that your system language is french? Your screenshot looks like it is. Can you make a screenshot of that exception messages? I think this might be because of your system language...

[Florian Segginger]

correct, that's french! There's no particular exception message. All of the exceptions that popped up in Visual Studio had localized messages. I've checked around already and these are coming from the .NET assemblies provided by Microsoft, which are automatically loaded based on OS language, I imagine. See my answer for the (hopefully permanent) solution.

[Jason_L_Bens]

Good stuff. I'm digging the downvotes. From the question: "Is it possible to permanently uninstall a .NET language pack?". I think this is closer than the accepted answer, which just blocks the install. Thanks, though.