System Clean Literally Wiped the Language Bar from Windows 7 - gone.

May 29, 2024 2:54 AM

Did a system clean yesterday with a new program (uninstalled already) and now the language bar is no longer. Yes, Windows 7. It's a long story and cannot install anything else right now because I'm also in a war zone. Yeah. So control panel, keyboards, language bar - nope. Doesn't work any which way. I tweaked registry with add ctfmon.exe in Windows system with added script - that didn't work. Did a repair with f8 - Windows did not detect anything. There is restore point to go to. What are the options other than a clean install and is there anything that could be preventing ctfmon.exe from loading? It's on the computer. What could be the culprit in this and what is the turnaround?
posted by watercarrier to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Response by poster: Edit - *there is NO restore point to go to*.
posted by watercarrier at 2:55 AM on May 29, 2024

So control panel, keyboards, language bar - nope

I'm confused - you mean that just the language bar isn't showing up, right? Or do you mean the whole Control Panel (what you usually reach from the Start menu)?

What happens when you just directly run ctfmon.exe?
posted by trig at 3:22 AM on May 29, 2024

Response by poster: @trig, so I fixed it. Went to another source to backtrack where it went wrong, and apparently I put the registry string in the wrong RUN. Fixed that. It wasn't under CurrentVersion. Well now it is, the language bar is back. If I ran it on it's own - nothing. Tried that too. OK lesson learned - don't do system cleans with unverified programs.
posted by watercarrier at 4:51 AM on May 29, 2024 [3 favorites]