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July 31, 2015

Fixed the issue: the language bar is missing in the task bar after the downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7

I bought my acer laptop 5 years ago. Before upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I would not install any software in this laptop from my testing experience. This is the best way to prevent any software incompatibility. If I have a lot of software installed, it takes a long time to finish the upgrade. That’s not what I want.

I downloaded the Media Creation Tool to install Windows 10. It was easy and fast. 





After the installation, I noticed the performance in acer laptop was really bad. When using Microsoft Edge to open Internet Explorer or using Chrome to search online, the laptop was in the heavy load, which caused DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION screen all the time. 

One day later, I decided to downgrade to Windows 7. It has “Go Back to Windows 7”  feature. After the downgrade, the performance is really FAST and one issue happened:

The language bar was missing in the taskbar even if my keyboard setup looked good in Regional and Language. I couldn't switch to Chinese language via Ctrl+ Space. Ctrl+ Space has been used for more than 10 years before Windows 8 was released. In Windows 10 & Windows 8, we need to use Win Key+ Space. I believe it is the downgrade bug. I finally found a way to make it work.

Go to the registry key : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Right Click to create a new String Value on the right side.

Enter the value:  ctfmon=CTFMON.EXE 

Reboot the laptop.  I can see the language bar in Windows 7 again


If you have the old laptop, upgrading to Windows 10 is not a good idea. 

6 comments:

Brother William said...

Hello I have almost exactly the problem as you had: upgrading to 10 and then needing to downgrade to 7 and losing the language bar.
I was trying to follow your instructions but can't even do the first step. (pardon my ignorance)

Where is the registry key?

Ray said...

Start menu-enter "regedit" in search and program files and press enter key. You will see registry editor showing up.

Brother William said...

Hello, thanks.
I go to the Registry editor but it is not the same as your picture.
No entry for ctfmon for me to change value.
Then at the search bar i typed ctfmon and suddenly the language bar showed up!
it is not working properly yet. can't turn off Changjie by ctrl-space.
but at least I can type chinese temporarily.
any thoughts? thanks in advance!

Brother William said...

sorry - i looked into the issue again and realized i had deleted the EN keyboard
so i re-added the keyboard and VOILA it is like before now. Ctrl-space for Chinese, etc.

Thank you Ray for all your help!

Merry Christmas to you!

Ray said...

Glad to hear that your issue is resolved. Merry Christmas.

Unknown said...

Thanks, it works.