Missing Pinyin IME keyboard

January 11, 2009 3:02 AM

Trying to add Chinese as an input language in Windows Vista Ultimate, but the Pinyin IME keyboard option does not appear. Selecting any of the Chinese languages (PRC/Taiwan etc) only brings up the option of a "US keyboard". How do I fix this?

Incidentally, all Chinese text turns up as gibberish, whether viewing documents in Microsoft Word or viewing websites on IE/Firefox. I've tried all the available character encoding options in the browsers, but none has worked so far. I assume these issues will be fixed once a Chinese keyboard has been added to the language bar, but if the problems are not connected, I would also appreciate some tips in this respect.

posted by hellopanda to computers & internet (6 comments total)

大熊猫,

Go to the Control Panel and select Clock, Language and Region.
From there choose the Change keyboards or other input methods.
You should now have the Regional and Language Options dialog box, verify that the Keyboards and Languages tab is selected.
Hit the [Change Keyboards] button to invoke the Text services and Input Languages dialog box.
From the General tab you can add languages, from the Advanced Key Settings you can set or verify the keystroke used to invoke the alternate language(s). The default, and what I use, is Left Alt+Shift.

See also, Pinyin Joe

好运！
posted by geekyguy at 8:57 AM on January 11

Thanks for your answer, geekyguy, and the link provided. Using Pinyin Joe's screenshot here as a reference, my problem is that the "Chinese (Simplified) - Microsoft Pinyin IME" keyboard simply does not appear as an available option for me to select. Clicking on "Show more" doesn't help either.

Any ideas?
posted by hellopanda at 3:19 PM on January 11

What choices are available? Does selecting [ ]Show More give you anything? Can you work with one of the other methods for Chinese input?

Lastly, I wonder, is you installation of Windows Vista, um, legitimate? Do you have the install disc? You might need it in order to add the desired language/input combination.
posted by geekyguy at 3:35 PM on January 11

Did you try installing Google Pinyin or Microsoft Pinyin?
posted by the cydonian at 2:03 AM on January 12

Selecting [Show More] gives me a laundry list of keyboards from, I dunno, Albanian to Welsh. But none of the Chinese variety, so no Chinese input method at all.

It really might be a dodgy Vista install that's the problem. It's a computer that a family member put together for my parents. I will definitely look into that!

Meanwhile, I'll try cydonian's suggestions. Thanks, both! Will continue to check the page and will be back to mark best answers once I get to the bottom of this.
posted by hellopanda at 9:16 AM on January 12

Tried both Microsoft Pinyin and Google Pinyin, as cydonian suggested. I wasn't even allowed to install Microsoft Pinyin ("This installation package could not be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows installer package"). Google Pinyin certainly gave me a non-English keyboard, but I can't tell because everything appears as little boxes.

All of that, plus repeated fiddling around with the language settings and browser encoding options, lead me to think that yes, geekyguy is correct that I have a less-than-genuine Vista on my hands.
posted by hellopanda at 7:42 PM on January 17