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November 21, 2009 11:09 PM

How to display Japanese text in Win7?

Just upgraded my netbook to Win7 Professional. Then discovered this version of Win7 does not support language packs anymore. I only need to display Japanese language in a browser, not for local pps.

Does anyone know of a workaround? I've tried monkeying with the character encoding in FF, with no luck.

Would be fine using a different browser if that would work - I'm not familiar enough with Chrome etc to know what my options are.

posted by chez shoes to technology (7 comments total)

Win 7 does support languages. You get to it with the "Internet Options" applet in the Control Panel. Under the "General" tab, click the "Languages" button.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:21 AM on November 22, 2009

If you don't have that applet, install IE8 and you'll get it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:47 AM on November 22, 2009

That's Odd, do the Japanese encoding not show up in firefox? Do you have Unicode fonts?
posted by delmoi at 6:51 AM on November 22, 2009

If I read correctly, you can even install language packs in every version of Windows 7 (officially I think only Business and Enterprise support those).
posted by oxit at 6:53 AM on November 22, 2009

Thanks so far all - no luck with any of the above.

Trying to display this site, but the kanji does not display - just the kana.

If you have a link that discusses how to install the langguage pack in versions of Win7 other than Enterprise and Ultimate, could you please MeMail me or post? Thank you!
posted by chez shoes at 9:00 AM on November 22, 2009

Oh and - I've tried both Japanese and Unicode encoding in FF, and neither worked.
posted by chez shoes at 9:43 AM on November 22, 2009

I'm using IE8 under Win 7 Home Premium and the kanji on that site display fine. But I've used the Internet Options applet to install Japanese support.

I think your problem isn't Win 7 as such, but rather all the things that got cut out of it in order to make it fit on a netbook.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:57 AM on November 22, 2009