Change the Office 365 language for synced users

Office 365 is all about letting users set up their own environment and preferences. One of those preferences can be the language in the Office 365 interface. I work for a company in The Netherlands, where everyone speaks Dutch, but I still prefer my computer and software to be in English. In Office 365, I can set this up. Unless I’m a ‘synced user’, a user who originates in an on-prem AD and that is being synced to the cloud.

Even when I ask my administrator, he can’t set the preferred language via the appropriate PowerShell cmdlet

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set-msoluser -userprincipalname "xxx" -PreferredLanguage "en-US"

This will result in an error:

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set-msoluser : Unable to update parameter. Parameter name: PreferredLanguage.
At line:1 char:1
+ set-msoluser -userprincipalname xxx -preferredlanguage "en-US"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (:) [Set-MsolUser], MicrosoftOnlineException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.PropertyNotSettableException,Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.SetUser

So, what causes this error? It’s pretty simple. When you use DirSync (or the newer AADSync), the on-prem directory is leading. You could say the sync is one-way: changes sync from on-prem to the cloud, but not the other way around. Therefore, you can’t make changes to properties of the identity in Office 365. So, if you want to change the preferred language for such users, you should do this in the on-prem AD.

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Set-ADUser xxx -Replace @{‘preferredLanguage’=”en-US”}

All available language codes are listed here. And keep in mind, if your preferred language is not set, it will default to English.