Converting French Windows XP Install to English.

Jimathy · 6 Mar 2007 at 10:29

A mate in france has just bought himself a new PC. Trouble is its got a french language install of XP and its driving him nuts.

Is there an easy way of converting it to English without reinstalling?

Cheers

Sharknose · 6 Mar 2007 at 11:26

No..... in short.

I used to have the same issues in Japan. Basically ([insert geeky Mac Advert] unlike OS X, which has a single version sold worldwide, but with different locale information supplied) Microsoft seperate versions to each country. You'd have to buy a British XP copy to get British XP.

Priapus · 6 Mar 2007 at 14:03

Could you not just change the language?

jim5000 · 6 Mar 2007 at 16:06

You can change the input language and keyboard, but not the language used on all the menus and things.

mctiny · 6 Mar 2007 at 18:19

Sharknose said:
No..... in short.

I used to have the same issues in Japan. Basically ([insert geeky Mac Advert] unlike OS X, which has a single version sold worldwide, but with different locale information supplied) Microsoft seperate versions to each country. You'd have to buy a British XP copy to get British XP.

Wrong!!!

You can change the langauge or configure an Windows XP system to use more than one langauge.

What you need is the Microsoft MUI Langauge pack, but you cannot buy it in the shops

, I think it may only work with XP Pro and Server editions.

So technically it is possible to do but you need to get hold the correct MUI Langauge pack you require which I think is only available to OEM Manafacuters.

Try googling for MS MUI or look at the MS Knowledge base.

Sharknose · 7 Mar 2007 at 12:30

mctiny said:
Wrong!!!

You can change the langauge or configure an Windows XP system to use more than one langauge.

What you need is the Microsoft MUI Langauge pack, but you cannot buy it in the shops, I think it may only work with XP Pro and Server editions.

So technically it is possible to do but you need to get hold the correct MUI Langauge pack you require which I think is only available to OEM Manafacuters.

Try googling for MS MUI or look at the MS Knowledge base.

Ahhh, OK fair enough.

So, it's a no unless you have access to the MUI, which you can't buy normally.

[Hmmm, may have to have a dig around for this MUI, wouldn't mind tinkering with my work machine - an XP box.]

EDIT: Funky. I must ask though, why doesn't MS just ship this with the core product like Apple do? When I installed OS X, I told it I wanted Japanese and English, and dumped all the other languages to save disk space. Surely MS can do the same with Windows??!!?? :confused:

At least give users the option to do it. Windows has multiple user accounts. That's what I like about the Mac doing it. Wife runs in Japanese. I run in English. Would have been nice to do that in Windows, with a machine and OS I just brought somewhere as a home user.

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/DrIntl/faqs/MUIFaq.mspx