Changing Symantec Endpoint Encryption Preboot Display and Keyboard Input Language with Troubleshooting

Products

• Endpoint Encryption
• Drive Encryption
• Policy Based Encryption
• Desktop Email Encryption

Issue/Introduction

Symantec Endpoint Encryption (SEE) is used to encrypt the boot disk on a computer.  The SEE Client can use many different languages at the preboot authentication screen where the user enters the password to boot up the system.  

The Display language, which is the language the built-in text uses at preboot can be either German, Spanish, French, Japanese, or English.  

The Keyboard layout, or the language the end user will actually type can be many different languages from a vast list.  

Earlier versions of Symantec Endpoint Encryption could be set by running commands manually and was not something that could be controlled via policy.  To set a one-time keyboard layout, you can go into the preboot settings when you first turn the machine on, but if you would like to keep these preboot settings permanent, a command line command can be entered.  

The keyboard language is the language of the keyboard being used. Setting the correct keyboard language enables SEE to correctly interpret keystrokes.

Symantec Enterprise Division recommends using SEE 11.3.1 MP1 or 12.0.1 above for the best language display and keyboard layout detection in addition to a new command line option to easily show which display language and keyboard layout is being used (eedAdminCli.exe --get-language -d 0).  SEE 11.3.1 MP1 or 12.0.1 will automatically detect the operating system language and set the keyboard layout automatically so that you do not need to use the commands to set manually, which is a very convenient feature in the later versions of SEE available. 

 

Environment

Symantec Endpoint Encryption 11.3.1 MPX, 11.4 MPX, 12, 12.0.1

Resolution

When Symantec Endpoint Encryption is installed on a computer, it creates several folders on the local hard drive. In order to check which display and layout are being used, or to set the display and keyboard input language for the preboot authentication screen manually, perform the following steps on the computer you want to change the language on:

1. Open command prompt
2. Run the following command: 

   cd "C:\Program Files\Symantec\Endpoint Encryption Clients\Drive Encryption"

   • ​​This command will put you in the folder with the eedadmincli.exe application we will use to change the display and keyboard input language
3. Note the language you want to change the display and keyboard input language to. These languages can be different.
   • The supported display languages are: English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Japanese (jp), and German (de)
     
     
   • The supported keyboard languages are ( found by running eedadmincli --help): 
     
     TIP: With SEE 11.3.1 and above, you can run the following command to find out which display and  keyboard layout are being used:

     eedAdminCli.exe --get-language -d 0

     
     
     In the screenshot above, you can see the Keyboard layout is "en" for English and the Display language is set to "en" for English.
     
     As of SEE 11.3.1 and above, the following languages with their associated codes are available:
     
     

     Belgium	be
     Bosnian	ba
     Bosnian (Cyrillic)	ba-cyr
     Bulgarian	bg
     Bulgarian (Latin)	bg-lat
     Bulgarian (Typewriter)	bg-typ
     Croatian	hr
     Canadian (Multilingual STD)	ca
     Canadian (French)	fr-ca
     Chinese (Simplified)	cn-sim
     Chinese (Traditional)	cn-tra
     Czech (Qwerty)	cz
     Danish	dk
     Dutch	nl
     English (United States)	en
     English (United Kingdom)	en-gb
     English (International)	us-int
     Estonian	ee
     French	fr
     French (Belgium)	be
     German	de
     German (Austria)	de-at
     German (IBM)	de-ibm
     Hebrew	il
     Hungarian	hu
     Hungarian (101)	hu-101
     Icelandic	is
     Italian	it
     Italian (142)	it-142
     Japanese	jp
     Korean (Korean)	kr
     Norwegian (Bokmal, Nynorsk)	no
     Polish (Programmers)	pl
     Polish (214)	pl-214
     Portugese (Portugal)	por-pt
     Portugese (Brazil ABNT, ABNT2)	por-br
     Romanian	ro
     Russian	ru
     Serbian (Cyrillic)	sp-cyr
     Serbian (Latin)	sp-lat
     Slovak	sk
     Slovenian	si
     Swiss (German)	de-ch
     Swiss (French)	fr-ch
     Spanish	es
     Spanish (Variation)	es-var
     Spanish (Latin America)	es-la
     Swedish (Finland)	se-fi
     Turkish F	tr-f
     Turkish Q	tr-q
     Ukrainian	ua

     
     Note: If any of the above languages are not listed and you need them added, please contact Symantec Support and we can work with you on this.
     
     
     
     
     
      
4. Run the following command, replacing fr with the two letter abbreviation (found above) of the display language you would like to use:
   
   

   eedadmincli --set-language --disk 0 --display fr --keyboard fr --au adminUsername --ap adminPassword

5. Once you run the above command, run "eedAdminCli.exe --get-language -d 0" to validate that it changed the language.
   
   The following should now be returned:
   
   "Boot Language is set to KeyBoard=fr   Display=es"
   
   Now when you reboot the system, this will always be the language configured at preboot (If you change the layout at the Preboot Screen, this will only be applicate for that one reboot, but next reboot will revert to the default layout).
   
   • disk 0 specifies that 0 is the disk number you would like to change the language on
     • To find the disk number of the encrypted drive, run: eedadmincli --statusand note the disk number that is instrumented
       
       
        
   • ​​adminUsername is the username of the client administrator
   • adminPassword is the password of the client administrator account
     
     TIP: If you do not want to type the passphrase at the command prompt, you may leave off the --ap which will instead prompt you for the passphrase:
     
     
     One you enter the passphrase at the prompt, the command will then display the results of your command.  In the command above, the list of users should be displayed.
     
     
     
6. Ensure the change was successful
   
   

As you can see in the above screenshot, the language was successfully set to "fr" or French, and the keyboard layout was set to "fr" or French-France.   

If you want to find out which language is currently set, run the following command with SEE 11.3.1:

• eedAdminCli.exe --get-language -d 0

Because no authentication is needed to run this command, you could use this command with any deployment solution such as IT Management Suite (Altiris) to see the language on all the systems in the environment.  SEE 11.3.1 is required to run this command, but Symantec Enterprise Division recommends running the latest version for best results.  As of this writing, SEE 11.3.1 MP1 is the latest version.  For information on which version is currently release, see article 156303. 

 

More information about the options for the --set-languagecommand can be found by running eedadmincli --help

A subset of this information can be found below:

Troubleshooting:

As mentioned, earlier versions of Symantec Endpoint Encryption could be set by running commands manually and was not something that could be controlled via policy.  To set a one-time keyboard layout, you can go into the preboot settings when you first turn the machine on, however, this applies to only the one boot operation and will revert to what was previously set.  If you would like to keep these preboot settings permanent, a command line command can be entered.  

Starting with Symantec Endpoint Encryption version 11.2.1 MP1 the language could be detected automatically so that if the Windows configured keyboard layout was French Canadian for example, then the SEE client logic would set the display to French and the keyboard layout to French Canadian automatically (FR-CA).  There were some issues discovered with the 11.2.1 MP1 client that we later resolved.

As of this writing, Symantec Enterprise Division recommends using SEE 11.3.1 MP1 for the best language display and keyboard layout detection in addition to a new command line option to easily show which display language and keyboard layout is being used (eedAdminCli.exe --get-language -d 0).

 

If you are unsure why the language was not detected properly, run the following command via Powershell:

Get-WinUserLanguageList 

This will display the current OS language that is being used.  Use the following articles to map the correct language codes and 

Keyboard Identifiers and Input Method Editors for Windows

Windows Language Code Identifier (LCID) Reference

 

If you still cannot get the language to be set automatically and you've tried the latest version of Symantec Endpoint Encryption, please contact support so we can assist you with the next troubleshooting steps.


More information about the eedadmincli.exe utility, can viewed on our techdocs portal:

Symantec Endpoint Encryption Drive Encryption Administrator Command Line Guide

 

Keywords:
Symantec Endpoint Encryption Keyboard Layout
SEE Keyboard Language
SEE Preboot Language
SEE Display Language