Windows – MS Office 2007 – change UI display language from German to English

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Microsoft Office 2007 comes in different languages. This includes different formula names in Excel, e.g. =Summewenn instead of =sumif. This is quite inconvenient if you're used to the English names or your training material uses those.

I have a German Windows 7 and Office 2007 Professional Plus because I bought them in Germany. I would like to change as much as necessary to English in order to get English Excel formulas and preferably also menu items.

I went to Excel Options/Language Settings (Spracheinstellungen) – this is the same as what you get through Windows Start/Microsoft Office Tools. There was no Display Language tab and no check box to uncheck to use the Windows system language.
On the tab "Bearbeitungssprachen" I was able to select English (US) as primary interface language. This setting had no effect whatsoever.

After some research, I tried the following Registry changes:

  • HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Office/12.0/Common/LanguageResources
    • set UILanguage to 0409 – changed back to 0407 at start of Excel
    • set InstallLanguage to 409 – no effect
  • HKLM/System/ControlSet001/Control/NIs/Language
    • set (Standard) to 0409 (from no value) – no effect
    • set Default to 0409 – remains so but has no effect
    • set InstallLanguage to 0409 – changes back to 0407 at boot

0407 is the language code for German, 0409 the one for English.

I also tried to uninstall and reinstall Office but there is no option to change the language.

What do I need to do in order to get English formulas and preferably menus?

Best Answer

You need a language pack, which unfortunately are no longer for sale (according to a blog) for office 2007. Your best bet is a new Office license.

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