Add languages to Windows images using DISM and PowerShell

Since Microsoft has decided to replace language packs (LPs) in .cab format with Local Experience Packs (LXPs) format. In the future, Microsoft is going to support LXPs only. There will no longer be any LPs.cab files for LIP. This will remove the overhead of needing language Packs (LP) as a prerequisite for installing Language Interface Packs (LIPs). Here are some possible errors you can encounter while resolving this issue Error 0xc1570103: The license file was not found in the specified path, and how to fix error 0xc1510114: The wim file needs to be remounted. Local Experience Packs are faster to install and have a smaller operating system footprint. If you create Windows images with LIP, you will have to add the corresponding LXP for that LIP.

For full languages, there is no change and you will continue to use the corresponding LP.cab.  LXPs are the successor of the traditional LIP files. Additional to the list of the previous LIPs, you now also have LXP files for all those languages for which you have had only a full language pack available.

It’s important to note that deploying an LXP (Language Experience Pack) for a language like German or French, for example, doesn’t imply that the translation of the entire operating system. LXP files where a full language pack is available will just translate the most used parts of the Operating System. That’s what they mean by “partially localized language” in the output and why LXPs are smaller than the LP CAB files.

Note: You can start testing Windows image creation using LXPs using Windows 10 Build 17723 or higher EEAP builds. We are providing LXP AppX packages and their corresponding licenses for all 72 LIPs in the language pack ISOs.

Note:

Windows 2019 will still retain the .cab format for now. At the moment, System Admins who want to add additional LPs to the Windows image before deployment can choose between .cab files and LXPs for the May update. The Local Experience Packs (LXPs) If required can also be downloaded directly from the Microsoft Store as Appx packages as well. You can add these Appx from the Microsoft store. This is a very quick way to implement Features on Demand such as Handwriting, speech-to-text dictation, and additional language packs.

Here are the various ways, you can add the LXPS to Windows. I will be discussing below how you can achieve with DISM tool and PowerShell.
– DISM
– PowerShell
– Via the GUI in Windows and
– The Unattend.xml route

With DISM

Integrate LXPs into Windows Image (install.wim). With this method, OOBE, you can add one or more local experience packs (LXPs, basically, stripped-down language packs) so that the user can choose between them at the start of OOBE. You can find more Information here.

dism /image:G:\Path-to-the-mount-file\MountZ /Add-ProvisionedAppxPackage /packagepath:G:\Path-the-LXPs\de-de\LanguageExperiencePack.de-DE.Neutral.appx /licensepath:G:\Path-to-the-License\de-de\License.xml

When the above command is run and it is successful, you should get a similar message as shown below.

Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: xxxxxxxxxx
Image Version: xxxxxxxx
The operation completed successfully.

Now that we have added the packages successfully, you will have to save (commit) the changes made to the .wim file as shown below. This will unmount and save the newest state.

dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:G:\Path-to-the-mount-file\MountZ /commit

PowerShell

Integrate LXPs into Windows Image (install.wim). This provisions the AppX in the system, and it should appear in the language selection during the out-of-box experience (OOBE) phase. You can find more information here.

Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -Path G:\mount -PackagePath .\LanguageExperiencePack.de-DE.Neutral.appx -LicensePath .\License.xml

Note: You can download the Windows 10 2004 language ISO from following websites https://my.visualstudio.com or from https://www.microsoft.com/vlsc, which is the Volume Licensing Service Center. For more information, on how to add languages to Windows images using DISM and PowerShell, see the following guide.

FODs with satellites have to be added using DISM /add-capability so that satellite packages are correctly added

We recommend adding language and region Features on Demand to support your language packs and LIPs. This includes the Basic, Fonts, OCR, Text-to-speech, and Speech recognition FODs if they’re available for the languages you’re pre-installing. Additionally, include the handwriting language component FOD if you’re shipping a device with a pen.

For Windows 11

In Windows 11, only language packs, including LIPs, distributed as .cab files can be used for imaging at the time of writing this piece. Five LIP languages (ca-ES, eu-ES, gl-ES, id-ID, vi-VN) are available as a .cab. LIP languages that aren’t distributed as .cab files will only be available as .appx packages acquired through the Settings app after logging in.

Starting with Windows 11, non-administrator user accounts can now add both the display language and its corresponding language features. This feature means you won’t need to pre-install language packs for users in a personal host pool

I hope you found this blog on How to add languages to Windows images post helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session