Windows 11 language's basic typing won't finish downloading

Anonymous
2022-12-10T10:19:56+00:00

There is a known issue that if you type Chinese characters in an English system environment, the word-searching bar would disappear while typing multiple Chinese characters in a row. This issue was never fixed and was very annoying. Today I tried to uninstall the Chinese language pack and wanted to do a reinstall, the language pack was downloaded just fine, but the basic typing was just stuck at the downloading phase and never goes to completion. I've been waited for more than 24 hours already.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Input and language

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Anonymous
2023-06-30T04:39:22+00:00

Hey guys,

New here but was plagued by the exact same issue (Windows 11 ASUS ROG laptop) and managed to solve it with one of the mentioned solutions. Here is a TLDR and its working perfectly now for all languages for me.

Methods that did not work:
DISM fixes, restarts, regedits, ESD/CAB installations

Method that worked:1. Remove all language packs installed in Optional Features

2. Remove all secondary languages under Time and Language (Just leave the main one)

3. Run an In-Place Windows 11 upgrade (link provided below on how, might take quite a while involving multiple auto restarts. apps and files are not affected at all, read info in link)

4. Reinstall secondary languages, they should still take quite a long while but a tad under 45 minutes for me

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-run-in-place-upgrade-in-windows-11/4d469147-2747-4dcb-88a4-aae9273a4500

Hope it helps for those who are still stuck!

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-05T22:33:44+00:00

    Updates: I tried the following and got it to work FINALLY. Not sure which one(s) are really needed.

    1. removed Chinese language pack
    2. Run "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" in command line
    3. Update windows 11 to the latest.
    4. Download the language pack and basic typing again. SUCCESS!

    Don't know if it is necessary but I restarted my laptop after each step.

    I have a similar problem, but not with Chinese.

    I've been using Duolingo to learn several different languages for fun, and I loop between 5 languages, giving 1 week to each. Two of the languages have writing systems that I do not normally use, but am trying to learn together with the languages - Japanese and Greek. It is very cumbersome to keep them installed at all times, because it makes switching between Bulgarian and English, which I use every day, slower and error-prone. This is why every evening before I start studying one of these languages, I add it to Windows (explicitly de-selecting any optional features and leaving only the required ones, which always include Basic typing); and then remove it immediately after I'm done studying.

    What started happening several loops ago, so probably 2 or 3 months ago, is that Basic typing itself never finishes installing. This has two unwanted side effects:

    1. The Japanese IME is no longer really usable; I can't switch to Hiragana or Katakana (either after right-clicking on the language bar, or by pressing Alt+~) - I get a "Japanese IME is not ready yet" error that, if clicked, takes me to Language options: Japanese showing that Basic typing is still downloading.
    2. My computer can't turn off or restart normally. No matter whether I remove the language or let it keep downloading forever, if I try to Shut down or Restart Windows, the operation never completes; I have to press the hardware reset button or turn off the power supply. If I don't first remove the language, then on the next Windows start-up it shows as installed, but it's missing Basic typing (and Japanese is therefore still unusable).

    What's more, this now happens to every other language I've tried to add.

    Sadly, following these 4 steps doesn't work (even though dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth reports completing successfully), no matter whether I restart between them.

    Updating DNS also doesn't work.

    I've yet to try using the ISO image to repair my system, as recommended by Mitchell - MSFT. I don't like the disclaimer about backing up my important data which I've otherwise managed to protect for almost 15 years in at least 4 major versions of Windows and countless updates.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-05-16T21:04:20+00:00

    Same issue, yet it is not related to Chinese, in my case I am just trying to download English US

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-08T21:41:21+00:00

    one more thing for those who is going to try - "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" took a long time to finish (finish when control returns to the Command Line) - in my case, it took more than 3 hours to finish (I have no idea what the program was doing for that long time after finishing patching, which you can monitor by viewing the log file). In my case, it eventually worked when I allowed it to run to its completion - not sure it was actually related).

    Incidentally, to run "dism" will require to executed the command line in "RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR" mode. Right click on the app and select the mode.

    Good Luck to you all

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-12-14T02:17:42+00:00

    My solution is not to download Microsoft Chinese basic typing, simply download a Chinese keyboard like Baidu typing, and you should be able to type in Chinese. But this won't fix the issue of word-choosing bar disappearing while typing in a browser.

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