kbswitch

kbswitch lets you switch quickly and easily between keyboard layouts in Windows.

If you've ever used Mac OS X – it's now as easy as that.

If you've never used Mac OS X, trust me: that means it's easy.

Features

  • Unintrusive. One discreet notification area icon. (Also, doesn't randomly mess up Visual Studio debugging.)
  • Doesn't use a keyboard shortcut. No more accidental layout switches.
  • Reliable. No more arguments with the language bar.
  • Hassle-free. Single EXE, no install required, can run off thumb drive, doesn't change your profile, doesn't save anything to disk.
  • Optional. Leave it running all the time, or run it just when you need it.

Download

kbswitch.zip (25K - EXE, docs, source code)

Installation

Copy supplied kbswitch.exe somewhere, and run it.

kbswitch is perfectly happy being run just when you need to switch layouts. You can also put a shortcut to it in the Startup folder of your Start Menu, so that it runs when Windows starts.

kbswitch is a single EXE file, and doesn't need to save any data anywhere. You can run it off a flash drive or other removable storage.

Use

When kbswitch is running, it will keep a little icon in the notification area, that looks a bit like a closeup of a keyboard.

./doc_imgs/kbswitch_icon.png

Hover over the icon to see the currently set layout.

./doc_imgs/kbswitch_tip.png

Right-click on the icon to get a popup menu listing available keyboard layouts. Select one to change to that layout.

./doc_imgs/kbswitch_menu.png

Select "Exit" to exit. The current keyboard layout remains set. (You can re-run kbswitch if you need to switch again later.)

Notes

  • If you look in the Regional and Language Options section of the Control Panel after changing the layout, you'll see that the current keyboard is set as the default. Don't worry – if you change using kbswitch, this new default is NOT saved. Next time you log on, you'll get your default default.
  • Satisfaction is not guaranteed when combined with other layout switching programs. (kbswitch may behave correctly, but the tool tip may be incorrect.)
  • Only tested on 32-bit Windows XP.

Other credits

  • The code for DVAssist demonstrated how to change the layout properly. (My original attempt was way over-complicated, and didn't work anyway.)
  • The icon comes from a freeware icons collection that I downloaded a few years ago.

Feedback

kbswitch snail tomseddon dot plus dot com