Windows Vista and Chinese IME

[rose~]

Does anyone know if there will be any improvements to the Chinese IME in Windows Vista? I think it's unfair that the Japanese IME seems to have had so much more effort from them- it has a built in dictionary and is far more advanced than the Chinese IME. I wonder if they will redress the balance with Vista?

[pandaxiongmao]

If you have used the MSPY 4.0 package on Windows XP (apparently not downloadable anymore), the IME in Vista is basically the same. In my experience, it is a little more reliable - I often had problems with the IME in XP switching between full-width and half-width roman characters in English mode, but I haven't had that problem on Vista. There also seems to be a few more characters available for the pinyin you type.

Not sure what you mean about a dictionary - on Windows Vista, there is a section of the "IME Pad" that allows you to narrow down characters based on number of strokes in the radical plus number of strokes in addition. There isn't a part where you can draw the character if that is what you want. I suspect the extra effort on the Japanese IME has to do with the fact there are probably a much-higher proportion of customers in Japan that actually pay for their software rather than just pirate it.

In terms of non-IME items, one thing I like about Vista is all the extra system protection. QQ 2006 Beta 3 doesn't work, but a copy of 2006 Beta 1 works fine. I removed all the spyware that came with it, and unlike XP, QQ can't reinstall all the spyware because of the system protection features on Vista.

With Windows Vista, I haven't needed to change the system locale (and thus reboot) for non-unicode programs that use different languages - it just seems to know. QQ is a good example of a non Unicode program.

All that said, Windows Vista is definitely a resource hog. I wouldn't recommend running it on any computer without at least 1GB of RAM and a recent, non-integrated video chipset.

[gougou]

there is a section of the "IME Pad" that allows you to narrow down characters based on number of strokes in the radical plus number of strokes in addition. There isn't a part where you can draw the character if that is what you want.

That would be a step back. I'm using MSPY 2003 and while I wasn't aware of the radical lookup until checking just now, I make frequent use of the character drawing function. They are both under the same button for me, that's why thus far I have only seen the drawing pad. I'd guess that it'd be the same for you too?

[pandaxiongmao]

On Windows Vista, like previous versions, you can draw Kanji in the IME pad for Japanese input. I just checked the "Chinese (Traditional) - New Quick" method on Windows Vista, and it does have the option to draw Hanzi in the IME Pad.

However, the IME Pad accessed from the Microsoft Pinyin IME (version 10.0.6000.0, which comes with Vista) does not have any space to draw Hanzi like you can in the Japanese or Chinese (Traditional) input methods. I also do not see any Help documentation indicating it is possible to draw characters using any of the simplified Chinese input methods on Vista.

I don't remember MSPY 4.0 (aka 2003) having the ability to draw characters, but then again, I have been accustomed to using Wenlin for that purpose. Do you have a graphics tablet on your computer? Is your computer a Tablet PC? I wonder if that makes any difference. I don't have a graphics tablet here.

[gougou]

I don't remember MSPY 4.0 (aka 2003) having the ability to draw characters, but then again, I have been accustomed to using Wenlin for that purpose. Do you have a graphics tablet on your computer? Is your computer a Tablet PC? I wonder if that makes any difference. I don't have a graphics tablet here.

I use a standard laptop, a mouse for drawing the characters. When using the pinyin input (simplified or traditional), I have a button "Open/Close IME Pad" in the language bar. This pad has the radical lookup you mentioned earlier, on another tab it also has a drawing pad to put in characters.