How to set MSDN to be always in English

Question

I know that this isn't exactly programming question, but it is tightly related -

How the hell do I set MSDN to display everything in English? I'm Czech, and every KB or documentation article it automatically translates it to Czech with their translator, which result just in gibberish, and switching it to English requires couple of searching and clicks.

Answer 1

I wrote a simple dedicated browser extension for this. Unlike the Redirector plugin, no configuration is required.

It's called "FFS MSDN in English" and is available for:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Opera

It simply redirects any localised MSDN (or docs.microsoft) page to the english (en-us) version.

The rather trivial sources can be found at https://github.com/AirLancer/ffs_msdn_in_english

Answer 2

Very legitimate question, I think.

You need to modify the url like explained here. In your case change cz-cz to en-us.

Or better, let it do a browser plugin like Redirector for firefox:

Answer 3

You can select your default language from bottom left of the page.

Edit

New docs site has an easier option to view in English. However, the setting is not permanent.

Answer 4

I've fixed it by installing a redirector plugin for chrome: http://bendavis78.github.io/chrome-extension-redirector/

Answer 5

If you are using Google search, you need to change language preferences for Google itself (you don't need to be logged in)¹:

1. Go to https://google.com
2. Click Settings > Search settings on the bottom right corner.
3. Proceed to Languages tab.
4. Choose English as preferred.

---

¹ You might also need to do what pr0gg3r and Beachwalker advise.

Answer 6

One solution is to rewrite google's search engine links using this Tampermonkey userscript:

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Fix learn.microsoft.com links on google.com
// @description  Changes all links to en-us versions.
// @include      /^http[s]?:\/\/(www\.)?google\.[a-z]{2,3}\/.*$/
// @noframes
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';

    let re = /^(https?:\/\/(docs|msdn).microsoft.com)\/(\w+\-\w+)\/(.*)/i;
    const links = document.querySelectorAll("a");
    for (const link of links) {
        let m = re.exec(link.href);
        if (!m) continue;
        const clone = link.cloneNode(true);
        clone.removeAttribute('onmousedown');
        clone.href = `${m[1]}/en-us/${m[4]}`;
        link.replaceWith(clone);
    }
})();

Edit 2021-01-28: Remove onmousedown attribute event from link. Stops link capture and substitution of google's own redirect link.

Answer 7

I do not want to use extensions because I consider their required permissions to be a major security risk. Furthermore MSDN is not the only site where translations sucks. So for me the best solution was to change the language settings in Windows 10. Add English to your "Preferred languages" and set it to be 1st. Apps and websites will appear in the first language in the list that they support.

Answer 8

I like to have the choice between the translated and en-us version. I authored the following UserScript... to be used in TamperMonkey for instance.

It does what it pretends in the @description.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Link to MSDN in en-us
// @description  Adds a link in the top left corner of the translated MSDN pages allowing to jump to en-us version.
// @match        http*://learn.microsoft.com/*
// @match        http*://msdn.microsoft.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';
    let url = location.href;
    let rx = /^http([s]?):\/\/(docs|msdn)\.microsoft\.com\/(\w+\-\w+)\/(.*)$/i;
    let match;
    if ( match = rx.exec(url) ) {
        if (match[3] !== 'en-us') {
            var targetUrl = url.replace(rx, "http$1://$2.microsoft.com/en-us/$4");
            jQuery("body").prepend(
                jQuery('<a>en-us</a>').attr('href', targetUrl)
            );
        }
    }
})();

Answer 9

In Firefox > Settings > "Language and Appearance" section there is below some Language settings a button next to a label that says:

"Choose your preferred language for displaying pages"

There you can setup a ordered list of languages. I have added english and moved it to the top of the list. Now after a restart the same, previously opened msdn links do not auto translate.

Answer 10

I don't know the browser you're using but most browsers send info about the client to the server (incl. preferred language). So one option might be to set the default language to english (as done here for Firefox).