For a while now it’s been bugging me that when I check for Windows Updates it was showing up something like 34 optional language files. Finally I decided enough was enough and I did some quick checking on line on how to get rid of them.
Well, turns out to be very easy but you don’t get rid of them, you just hide them. There’s a detailed explanation at SevenForums but it boils down to selecting the update and right clicking and selecting ‘Hide update’ from the resulting menu items. Depending on your security settings you might get a User Access Control (UAC) prompt to approve the change.
In my case all I had to do was select all of the language updates by selecting the first one and then using ‘Shift’ clicking on the last one. With all of them selected a right click allowed me to select ‘Hide update’. They don’t all disappear immediately but will be grayed out. When you exit out of Windows Update and go back in, no optional language packs.
Steven JW Kennedy 