Martin Spedding's Blog

Adventures in a disconnected world

Why can't I choose the Windows language when I setup a computer ????

I am English, but I live in Switzerland. My old computer was getting a bit long in the tooth and so I decided to buy a new one. Of course in Switzerland here are four official lanaguages : German, French, Italian and Reto romanisch. English though widely spoken as a second language is not an official language.

I saw some good offers and decided to purchase a new machine. Of course the machine came with Windows XP pre installed. It was the german version of Windows XP !  My german is fairly good but I prefer to use the english version of software. Which means now I have to install the english version of XP. That means either partitioning the drive or wiping the drive as I know from experience never try and install the english version of Windows over a German version. It is just not worth the pain.

This is such a nuissance as if I was installing Linux, I would be asked at the start which language I wanted and given a large list to choose from. Why or why doesn't Windows do this ?

When it comes to the Tablet PC it is even worse, as the operating system comes with the hardware. Again no ability to change the language.

My wish is that with Longhorn this is no longer problem and that I can simply choose which language I want to install at the start.

 

Posted: Feb 22 2004, 11:45 PM by MartinSp | with 6 comment(s)

Comments

Raymond Chen said:

If you start with English then you can add other languages. But if you start with some other language, then you're stuck with it. That's because the English version is specially designed to support multiple languages (see http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/relnotes/muixpsp1.mspx ). You have to install the languages you want to add, though. There isn't room on the CD to include all the translations into the 20-some-odd languages that Windows supports. Just the translations takes something like 3 CDs.
# February 22, 2004 10:54 PM

YS entertainment said:

same problem heere
# May 28, 2004 8:52 AM

Romy said:

same , problem , i wish to switch to english languae,

can some help and tell me if it possible to sticsh to ENGLISH ? romy@vsnl.com someone please Help

# May 29, 2007 3:49 PM

Finnish said:

Same Problem I want to install english sp3 but my language is my name you read it how to change it ?

# August 4, 2008 3:17 AM

Ahmad said:

If you want to change urs windows language just reinstall it and during the setup process change the language to english or any language u want

# November 28, 2008 11:58 PM

Olalere Olushola Samson said:

I think one needs to reinstall the OS and choose English during installation

# April 1, 2009 8:55 AM
Leave a Comment

(required) 

(required) 

(optional)

(required)