Windows – How to add a custom keyboard layout to Windows 7

do you still have the .msi? Perhaps you can run it with msiexec /u? Or re-install it again?

Basically, it should be impossible that a .msi does not create an uninstall entry (and will not be rolled back when you try to install any other .msi). If you removed the uninstall entry manually, you can still uninstall it via msiexec /u, but you will need to find the installer GUID for that (which can be hard to find if you have a lot of stuff installed...)

If that fails: The entries themselves are in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Keyboard Layouts, so you can at least remove the entry for your layout (if not uninstall the .dll and stuff).

Normally you can uninstall a keyboard using the following method:

1. Go to add/remove programs
2. Find the keyboard, it should be the same name as the Description field of the project's properties in Keyboard Layout Creator.
3. Press Modify
4. Choose Remove the keyboard layout

The problem was that I uninstalled it incorrectly and I had to manually remove it.

If you need to manually remove it, here's how I did it:

1. Remove the keyboard from the Language and Regional settings:
   1. Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages > Details...
   2. If it exists as one of the installed services, you should remove it. You can do this by adding another keyboard (e.g. US) and making it the default one, then removing the keyboard you are trying to get rid of.
2. Open regedit
3. Warning: you should backup your registry in case you accidentally delete something important.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts\
5. Find the key that represents your keyboard: (referred to as "the key" in following steps)
   • It should be in the form XXXXXXXX (an 8 hex digit number).
   • Each key should have values such as: Layout Display Name, Layout File, Layout Id, Layout Product Code, Layout Text.
   • The Layout Text property should match the keyboard name that you chose.
   • Mine was near the end and started with an a instead of a 0 like all the others.
6. Take a look at the Layout File which should be a .dll name. I will refer to it as "the dll" in the following steps.
7. Look for the dll in C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache and delete it if it exists.
8. Look for the dll in C:\WINDOWS\system32 and delete it if it exists.
9. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\DosKeybCodes and see if it has a Name which is equal to the key's name (e.g. XXXXXXXX) and a value such as en. If it does, delete it.
10. Navigate back to the key (from step 5), and delete the entire key.