Windows in-place upgrade won’t keep apps due to different language

Attempting to do an in-place upgrade to Windows 11 presented an option step during the setup phase where you can choose to keep all apps and files, just files, or nothing (i.e. start afresh). However, the preferred option of keeping all apps and files was greyed out, with the comment that the Windows 11 installation was using a different language to the existing install. This was a little strange as the installer was English (UK), and the machine was using the English (UK) keyboard, and only English (UK) language settings, with English (UK) as the display language, system locale, and default for new accounts…

In this instance you can determine the primary system language by running the following in an administrative command prompt:

DISM /online /get-intl

For this example, the machine’s default language (even though it was not shown anywhere in the Language and Settings GUI) was EN-US. This means the Windows 11 ISO needed to be the US version rather than the UK.

The various language options can be downloaded from the Microsoft Windows 11 Installation Assistant page (scroll down to the ISO download options).

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