Help me install Japanese Windows XP

May 3, 2007 10:23 AM

English speaker needs help installing Japanese version of Windows XP Pro SP2.

I need to set up a computer with Windows and our custom software for a customer in Japan. They have sent us a boxed copy of the Japanese version of Windows XP Pro, SP2. I have installed Windows several times, and was even thinking of installing an English version side by side to compare screens, but I don't know that the installtion programs are the same from screen to screen.

Has anyone done this before and/or are there screen shots out there that would be useful to navigate this installation? I'm not sure that our software will even work on Japanese Windows but I need to get it installed before I'll be able to try it.

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

If you can install an english version of XP side by side, the dialogs are pretty much identical.

The only hard part I have is trying to set up a US keyboard mapping in the control panel, but you could find it by trial and error. If I remember right, it is one of the listings that only has two symbols.
posted by Diddly at 11:19 AM on May 3, 2007

Thanks for the advice. I'm doing that right now and it seems to be working. The first screen that came up didn't match but then I realized that the Japanese system has RAID installed so I had to install the RAID drivers. Luckily that part was in English.

The next hurdle came when it wanted me to select the type of keyboard attached. One of the options was 'S' so I tried that and it gave me a list of keyboard options in English. Hopefully they'll be able to switch over to a Japanese keyboard if they want to.

Everything else is matching up so far...
posted by jacobsee at 11:49 AM on May 3, 2007

One thing that might help is to prepare an unattended install.
posted by me & my monkey at 4:17 PM on May 3, 2007

Too late, it seems, as you're already doing it, but I've set up dual-boot English XP/Korean XP (christ I wish MS would allow language-swapping of the OS interface on the fly -- it can't be that difficult, can it, given what they can do already) systems many times, and the procedure is, as far as I've been able to tell, identical, with the text translated. That would, of course, make the most sense.

Again, too late, but have a copy of install screenshots in English (easily googleable) and you can walk through it pretty easily (until and if something goes kaboom, I guess. I've been lucky).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:30 PM on May 3, 2007

I'm not sure if I answered your question, or even what your question was, now. If I didn't, sorry.

One thing that will kill you is if the program in question is not unicode-aware (lazy damn programmers), in which case all of the Japanese will display not as Japanese on an English XP install, even if you've got IME and font support installed, but as crazy high-ASCII moon language.

One way around this (which works at least some of the time) is to use MS's Applocale tool.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:37 PM on May 3, 2007

thanks for all the suggestions, I think I've mostly got it working. my old-school C++ app installed just fine and is all-english menus, etc.
posted by jacobsee at 12:22 PM on May 8, 2007