The Visual Studio Installer for VS2019 automatically pulls the language package that matches the current Operating System. My Windows 10 Operating System language is currently German – there is a thing that always keeps me wondering:
Why is the Tools menu translated to Extras in German Visual Studio?
This and some more pecularities (especially important when working in pairs with non-German speakers) may be a good reasons to switch to old good English UI. Here is how to do it for an already installed Visual Studio 2019 instances (you can obviously apply this for any currently used language).
If target language pack has been already downloaded…
The only thing you have to do is to locate the correct settings. Go to Extras -> Optionen -> Umgebung -> Internationale Einstellungen and select the language from the list.
If target language pack has not been yet downloaded…
- Close all Visual Studio windows
- Run the Visual Studio installer. You can do this by going to Add/Remove Programs (Programme und Features) and selecting the right item. Press Ändern to bring the setup window.
- Go to the second tab and enable English language. You can disable German one if you do not plan to switch to it in future. Leaving just only new language enabled will automatically switch VS to that language. Press Ändern to apply the changes.
- In case you didn’t uninstall previous languages first, then after restarting you may need to go to Settings to change to the newly downloaded language pack. Simply go to Extras -> Optionen -> Umgebung -> Internationale Einstellungen and select the language from the list.
Installing language packs from command line
It is possible to automate installing language packs, by using the following command line (executed in directory where the installer resides, usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer):
vs_installer.exe modify --addProductLang En-us --path install="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community" --quiet --wait
Note: The full installation path is required for this to work. I am using VS 2019 community installed in the default location, but you may update the path accordingly.
Instead of En-us for American English, any valid identifier from this list works too.