Remove the unwanted keyboard layouts that Windows keeps adding based on input languages

Remove-UselessKeyboardLayouts.ps1

# this is one of Stéphane BARIZIEN's public domain scripts
# the most recent version can be found at:
# https://gist.github.com/sba923/a71dd721e78ae08842616db244f19437#file-remove-uselesskeyboardlayouts-ps1

[CmdletBinding()]
param([string] $PhysicalKeyboardLayout)

$iswinps = ($null, 'Desktop') -contains $PSVersionTable.PSEdition
if (!$iswinps)
{
    Write-Host("This script requires Windows PowerShell, it doesn't run (yet) under PowerShell Core")
    Exit(1)
}


$languagelist = Get-WinUserLanguageList

# remember what the first entry is
$firstlanguage = $languagelist[0].LanguageTag

# guess the physical keyboard layout: it should be the layout with the highest
# number of occurrences for languages other than English
$keyboardlayoutused = @{}
for ($languageindex = 0; $languageindex -lt $languagelist.Count; $languageindex++)
{
    if ($languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag -ne 'en-US')
    {
        for ($keyboardlayoutindex = 0; $keyboardlayoutindex -lt $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Count; $keyboardlayoutindex++)
        {
            $keyboardlayout = $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[$keyboardlayoutindex] -replace '.*:', ''
            if ($null -ne $keyboardlayoutused[$keyboardlayout])
            {
                $keyboardlayoutused[$keyboardlayout]++
            }
            else
            {
                $keyboardlayoutused[$keyboardlayout] = 1
            }
        }
    }
}

# if at least one keyboard layout is configured, assume the actual physical keyboard layout 
# is the one configured for the highest number of input methods, 
# otherwise use the value of the -PhysicalKeyboardLayout parameter
if ($keyboardlayoutused.Keys.Count -ne 0)
{
    $PhysicalKeyboardLayout = (@(
            foreach ($k in $keyboardlayoutused.Keys)
            {
                [PSCustomObject] @{
                    KeyboardLayout = $k
                    Count          = $keyboardlayoutused[$k]
                } 
            }) | Sort-Object -desc count | Select-Object -first 1).KeyboardLayout
    Write-Verbose ("Assuming physical keyboard layout is {0}" -f $PhysicalKeyboardLayout)
}
elseif ($PSBoundParameters.ContainsKey('PhysicalKeyboardLayout'))
{
    Write-Verbose ("Using specified physicaly keyboard layout {0}" -f $PhysicalKeyboardLayout)
}
else
{
    throw "Cannot guess the physical keyboard layout, must specify it with -PhysicalKeyboardLayout as 4-hexdigit value."
}

# make sure there's an entry for the physical keyboard layout for all the configured languages

$updateneeded = $false

for ($languageindex = 0; $languageindex -lt $languagelist.Count; $languageindex++)
{
    $physicalkeyboardlayoutconfigured = $false
    for ($keyboardlayoutindex = 0; $keyboardlayoutindex -lt $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Count; $keyboardlayoutindex++)
    {
        if ($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[$keyboardlayoutindex] -match (':' + $PhysicalKeyboardLayout))
        {
            $physicalkeyboardlayoutconfigured = $true
        }
    }
    if (!$physicalkeyboardlayoutconfigured)
    {
        Write-Verbose ("Adding keyboard layout {0} for language '{1}'" -f $PhysicalKeyboardLayout, $languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag)
        if ($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Count -ge 1)
        {
            $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Add((($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[0] -replace ':.*', '') + ':' + $PhysicalKeyboardLayout))
        }
        else
        {
            $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Add(("{0:x4}" -f [System.Globalization.CultureInfo]::GetCultureInfo($languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag).LCID).ToUpper() + ':' + $PhysicalKeyboardLayout)
        }
        $updateneeded = $true
    }

}

if ($updateneeded)
{
    # make sure the first entry in the list hasn't changed
    # as it seems Set-WinUserLanguageList sets the Windows UI display language to the first entry in the list
    if ($languagelist[0].LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage)
    {
        $newlist = @()
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -eq $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist = $newlist
    }
    Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList $languagelist -Force
}

# first add the "language = XXX, keyboard layout = default layout for language XXX" if it's not on the list, to make sure removal does remove it 😜

$updateneeded = $false

$languagelist.LanguageTag | Foreach-Object {
    $languagetag = $_
    $languagecode = ($languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -eq $languagetag }).InputMethodTips[0].SubString(0, 4)
    $defaultinputmethod = $languagecode + ':0000' + $languagecode
    $defaultkeyboardlayout = $defaultinputmethod -replace '^....', ''
    for ($languageindex = 0; $languageindex -lt $languagelist.Count; $languageindex++)
    {
        if ($languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag -eq $languagetag)
        {
            $defaultlayoutpresent = $false
            for ($keyboardlayoutindex = 0; $keyboardlayoutindex -lt $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Count; $keyboardlayoutindex++)
            {
                if ($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[$keyboardlayoutindex] -match $defaultkeyboardlayout)
                {
                    $defaultlayoutpresent = $true
                }
            }
            if (!$defaultlayoutpresent)
            {
                Write-Verbose ("Adding input method {0} to ensure proper removal of keyboard layout {1} for language '{2}'" -f $defaultinputmethod, ($defaultinputmethod -replace '.*:', ''), $languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag)
                $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Add($defaultinputmethod)
                [Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessageAttribute('PSUseDeclaredVarsMoreThanAssignments', 'updateneeded', Justification = 'variable is used in various scopes throughout the script')]
                $updateneeded = $true
            }
        }
    }
}


if ($updateneeded)
{
    # make sure the first entry in the list hasn't changed
    # as it seems Set-WinUserLanguageList sets the Windows UI display language to the first entry in the list
    if ($languagelist[0].LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage)
    {
        $newlist = @()
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -eq $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist = $newlist
    }
    Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList $languagelist -Force
}

# now remove the unwanted keyboard layouts

$updateneeded = $false

for ($languageindex = 0; $languageindex -lt $languagelist.Count; $languageindex++)
{
    for ($keyboardlayoutindex = 0; $keyboardlayoutindex -lt $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.Count; $keyboardlayoutindex++)
    {
        if ($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[$keyboardlayoutindex] -notmatch (':' + $PhysicalKeyboardLayout))
        {
            Write-Verbose ("Removing keyboard layout {0} for language '{1}'" -f ($languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips[$keyboardlayoutindex] -replace '.*:', ''), $languagelist[$languageindex].LanguageTag)
            $languagelist[$languageindex].InputMethodTips.RemoveAt($keyboardlayoutindex)
            $updateneeded = $true
        }
    }
}





if ($updateneeded)
{
    # make sure the first entry in the list hasn't changed
    # as it seems Set-WinUserLanguageList sets the Windows UI display language to the first entry in the list
    if ($languagelist[0].LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage)
    {
        $newlist = @()
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -eq $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist | Where-Object { $_.LanguageTag -ne $firstlanguage } | ForEach-Object { $newlist += $_ }
        $languagelist = $newlist
    }
    Set-WinUserLanguageList -LanguageList $languagelist -Force
}