How to change language in visual studio

Display Language

Visual Studio Code ships by default with English as the display language and other languages rely on Language Pack extensions available from the Marketplace.

VS Code detects the operating system’s UI language and will prompt you to install the appropriate Language Pack, if available on the Marketplace. Below is an example recommending a Simplified Chinese Language Pack:

After installing the Language Pack extension and following the prompt to restart, VS Code will use the Language Pack matching your operating system’s UI language.

Note: This topic explains how to change the display language in the VS Code UI via Language Packs such as French or Chinese. If you want to add programming language support, for example for C++ or Java, refer to the Programming Languages section of the documentation.

Changing the Display Language

You can also override the default UI language by explicitly setting the VS Code display language using the Configure Display Language command.

Press ⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P ) to bring up the Command Palette then start typing «display» to filter and display the Configure Display Language command.

Press Enter and a list of installed languages by locale is displayed, with the current locale highlighted.

The locale can also be changed by editing the argv.json file directly (Preferences: Configure Runtime Arguments) and restarting VS Code.

Available locales

Marketplace Language Packs

As described above, VS Code ships with English as the default display language, but other languages are available through Marketplace Language Packs.

You can have multiple Language Packs installed and select the current display language with the Configure Display Language command.

Setting the Language

Note: You must have the appropriate Language Pack installed for the language you specify with the command-line switch. If the matching Language Pack is not installed, VS Code will display English.

Common questions

Unable to write to file because the file is dirty

This notification may mean that your argv.json file wasn’t saved after a previous change. Check if there are any errors in the file (Preferences: Configure Runtime Arguments), make sure the file is saved, and try to install the Language Pack again.

Can I contribute to a language pack’s translations?

Yes, the Visual Studio Code Community Localization Project is open to anyone, where contributors can provide new translations, vote on existing translations, or suggest process improvements.

How can I enable a programming language like Python?

Refer to the Programming Languages section to learn how to install support for programming languages, such as PHP, Python, and Java.

Modify Visual Studio workloads, components, and language packs

It’s easy to modify Visual Studio so that it includes only what you want, when you want it. To do so, open the Visual Studio Installer, and then add or remove workloads, components, and language packs.

Prerequisites

To install, modify, or update Visual Studio, you must run the Visual Studio Installer as an administrator. If you try to modify Visual Studio as a typical user, you’ll get a User Account Control notice prompting you for admin credentials. For more information, see User permissions and Visual Studio.

The following procedures assume you have an internet connection. For more about how to modify a previously created offline installation of Visual Studio, see:

Launch the installer to modify your installation

To modify your Visual Studio installation, you first need to launch the Visual Studio Installer, and then select a Visual Studio installation to modify.

Find the Visual Studio Installer on your computer.

In the Windows Start menu, you can search for «installer».

You can also find the Visual Studio Installer in the following location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vs_installer.exe

You might have to update the installer before continuing. If so, follow the prompts.

In the installer, look for the edition of Visual Studio that you installed, and then choose Modify.

If you have an update pending, the Modify button is in a different place. This way, you can modify Visual Studio without updating it, should you want to. Choose More, and then choose Modify.

There are many ways to open the Visual Studio Installer:

In the Windows Start menu, you can search for «installer», and then select Visual Studio Installer from the results.

Run the Visual Studio Installer executable, which is located at this path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vs_installer.exe

You might be prompted to update the Visual Studio Installer before continuing. If so, follow the prompts.

In the Visual Studio Installer, look for the installation of Visual Studio that you want to modify, and then choose the Modify button.

Change workloads or individual components

Workloads contain the features you need for the programming language or platform that you’re using. Use workloads to modify Visual Studio so that it supports the work you want to do, when you want to do it.

For more information about which tool and component bundles you need for development, see Visual Studio workloads.

In the Visual Studio Installer, choose the Workloads tab, and then select or deselect the workloads that you want.

Choose whether you want to accept the default Install while downloading option or the Download all, then install option.

The «Download all, then install» option is handy if you want to download first and then install later.

Choose Modify.

After the new workloads are installed, choose Launch from the Visual Studio Installer to open Visual Studio.

Workloads contain the components you need for the programming language or platform that you’re using. Use workloads to modify Visual Studio so that it supports the work you want to do, when you want to do it.

For more about which tools and component bundles you need for development, see Visual Studio workloads.

In the Visual Studio Installer, choose the Workloads tab, and then select or deselect the workloads that you want.

To add more components than a workload installs, choose the Individual components tab, and then select or deselect the individual components that you want.

Choose whether you want to Install while downloading or Download all, then install. The default option, Install while downloading, saves overall time by starting the install earlier.

Choose Modify.

After the modified workloads or components are installed, choose Launch from the Visual Studio Installer to open Visual Studio 2022.

For information about the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) component, see Download and install SSDT for Visual Studio.

Modify language packs

The Visual Studio Installer selects a default language pack for Visual Studio that matches the language of the operating system. However, you can change the default language whenever you want.

Support or troubleshooting

Sometimes, things can go wrong. If your Visual Studio installation fails, see Troubleshoot Visual Studio installation and upgrade issues for step-by-step guidance.

Here are a few more support options:

Programming Languages

Hundreds of programming languages supported

In Visual Studio Code, we have support for almost every major programming language. Several ship in the box, for example, JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, and HTML but more rich language extensions can be found in the VS Code Marketplace.

Here are eight of the most popular language extensions:

Go to the Marketplace or use the integrated Extensions view and search for your desired programming language to find snippets, code completion/IntelliSense providers, linters, debuggers, and more.

Note: If you want to change the display language of VS Code (for example, to Chinese), see the Display Language topic.

Language specific documentation

Click on any linked item to get an overview of how to use VS Code in the context of that language. Most language extensions also contain a summary of their core features in their README.

Language features in VS Code

The richness of support varies across the different languages and their extensions:

Changing the language for the selected file

Tip: You can get the same dropdown by running the Change Language Mode command ( ⌘K M (Windows, Linux Ctrl+K M ) ).

Language identifier

VS Code associates a language mode with a specific language identifier so that various VS Code features can be enabled based on the current language mode.

You can see the list of currently installed languages and their identifiers in the Change Language Mode ( ⌘K M (Windows, Linux Ctrl+K M ) ) dropdown.

You can find a list of known identifiers in the language identifier reference.

Adding a file extension to a language

You can add new file extensions to an existing language with the files.associations setting.

IntelliSense ( ⌃Space (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Space ) ) will show you the available language identifiers.

Next steps

Now you know that VS Code has support for the languages you care about. Read on.

Common questions

Can I contribute my own language service?

Yes you can! Check out the example language server in the VS Code Extension API documentation.

What if I don’t want to create a full language service, can I reuse existing TextMate bundles?

Can I map additional file extensions to a language?

Yes, with the files.associations setting you can map file extensions to an existing language either globally or per workspace.

Here is an example that will associate more file extensions to the PHP language:

You can also configure full file paths to languages if needed. The following example associates all files in a folder somefolder to PHP:

Note that the pattern is a glob pattern that will match on the full path of the file if it contains a / and will match on the file name otherwise.

How do I set the default language for new files?

Using the files.defaultLanguage setting, you can map all new files to a default language. Whenever a new blank file is opened, the editor will be configured for that language mode.

This example will associate new files with the HTML language:

question

I want to change language of VS installer. How can I do it?

I’m using Visual Studio 2019 Prof. edition.
Recently, I changed display language of VS from Korean to English but something didn’t changed.

As you can see in the picture above, Menu was changed. but when I checked update, language of installer remains unchanged.
If there’s anyone knows how to fix it, Please let me know how to do it.

3 Answers

in tyle here to search type cmd and press «Enter»

change directory by typing chdir C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer and press «Enter» if the installer is here

You can create also a batch

Thank you for the information. I could install English version in Japanese OS with this option «—locale en-US».

It works. However Microsoft should think about company employees flying abroad, which is quite common. The UX is really bad here.

Based on my testing, I can reproduce this issue. I have sent a feedback to production group.
You could comment and follow the issue under the following link: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/1201967/how-to-change-the-language-of-visual-studio-instal.html

Thank you for helping us build a better Visual Studio!

@AndrToth-2516, Thanks for the hint!
For me, the VS installer accepted «en-US» only after starting VS once with the English UI, i.e. simply setting English as the UI language and closing the VS window was not enough.
Then, however, the installer’s UI was permanently set to English, so starting it via the start menu also results in the English UI now.

question details

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Change language of Visual Studio 2017 RC

I have installed Visual Studio 2017 RC, and by default it set language to my system language (Polish) so I was trying to change it to EN but in Options > Environment > International Settings i have only Polish language. There is link to «download more languages», and it redirects to: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ And there I can only find language packs for VS 15. Anyone know where I can find EN language pack for VS 17 RC?

10 Answers 10

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You can only install a language pack at install time in VS 2017 RC. To install RC with a different language:

You can have multiple instances of VS 2017 side by side so this shouldn’t interfere with your other installation.

Disclosure: I work on Visual Studio at Microsoft.

You have to restart Visual Studio to see the change.

If you are polish (and got polish language settings)

Hope this helps! Have a great time in Poland!

This should solve it:

You need reinstall VS.

Language Pack Support in Visual Studio 2017 RC

Issue:

This release of Visual Studio supports only a single language pack for the user interface. You cannot install two languages for the user interface in the same instance of Visual Studio. In addition, you must select the language of Visual Studio during the initial install, and cannot change it during Modify.

Workaround:

These are known issues that will be fixed in an upcoming release. To change the language in this release, you can uninstall and reinstall Visual Studio.

In RC2 (and most likely in the final release) you can switch language from inside Visual Studio and you can modify your setup to include other language packs.

You can now add and remove multiple user interface languages at any time using the Visual Studio installer on the Language Pack tab. You can select the current user interface language among those installed using Tools > Options > International Settings. Source : https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/releasenotes/vs2017-relnotes#vside

You can CHANGE user interface LANGUAGE like this:

Open VS > VS Community > Preferences > Environment > Visual Style > User Interface language

I didn’t find a complete answer here

Firstly

You should install your preferred language

Secondly

2.Select International Settings in Environment

3.click on Menu and select you preferred language

5.restart visual studio

If the language that you want to select in above path is not appearing than you have to modify your visual studio by re-executing installer and selecting Language Packages tab and check your language that you want to have.

If you don’t see such an option then, as I was, you are forced to upgrade this crappy VS to the newest version.