Prevent RDC from installing new keyboard layouts

Question

My work PC and my home PC have different keyboard layouts.

Because of this, when I connect from one PC to another using RDC, Windows installs a second keyboard layout on the PC being connected, and it'll remain there even after I disconnect.

This drives me nuts, since Windows has a bad habit of changing the active layout when you switch applications. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

Answer 1

The keyboard layout change is by design, and I don't know of a solution, except for using instead of RDC another remote desktop solution such as VNC.

You might try to see if this behavior is not improved in the latest Remote Desktop Connection 7.0 client, but I wouldn't hope for too much.

The only help I can offer is the information that in Windows Vista it's possible to configure international settings from the command line. Writing such a script might simplify getting rid of the unwanted keyboard. If this interests you, see this article.

Answer 2

I know this is a very old question, but I just happened to find the solution:

a registry key exists for that very problem

To change the default behavior to obtain the Default input language setting from the default user profile, you must set a registry entry value on the terminal server. To do this, follow these steps:

• On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
• Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

• On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry information: Value name: IgnoreRemoteKeyboardLayout Data type: REG_DWORD Value data: 1

When the IgnoreRemoteKeyboardLayout entry is set to 1, new user profiles inherit the Default input language setting from the default user profile that the user account uses.