Guide for running chinese software etc in windows

[ruidianren2]

Hey all

I wonder how to and what to install on my English windows XP to be able to completely use all kinds of Chinese software and games without having any problems with Chinese characters looking like this: *&&%&???? etc.

I have done the necessary changes in the controlpanel/Regional settings, at least I think so. I have installed support for "East Asian language" and "complex script", and in the advanced tab I have changed "language for non Unicode programs" to Chinese, but it still doesn't work flawlessly. I can see Chinese on the net, and I can write it as well, but Chinese software like WarCraft3 in Chinese still doesn't work right.

Could anyone please help me by telling me step by step what to install.

thanx

[mandarinboy]

I am also a ruidianren and have had similar problems as you are experiencing. The setting you are refering to are for Microsoft programs, such as Internet explorer etc. Many games etc do not encode in unicode and do not use Microsoft encoding API. For them you need to use either a Chinese version of windows or a add on program. There are many such programs. e.g. njstar, china star etc. Most games etc is not run in a windows session and are often encoded with gb or big5. That is why you mostly see garbage characters. For running Chinese warcraft3 i use a program i bought in China with the game it self but i think it will work with njstar as well. You can test it for free fr 30 days. By the way, it is realy fun to listen to the sounds in the Chinese version. I did actualy learn some new Chinese words the first time i played it(sh)

[skanger]

NJ Star, or NJ Communicator if you want to write as well as read. This is probably the best and one of the easiest to use packages i've found.

[zarathustra]

You can merely install the Asian fonts which you can find somewhere in the Control Panel. Regional Settings or something like that. Afterwards, it helps to change your default encoding. What that means is when Windows doesn't know what language character set something is in, it'll use one of them automatically. Since many programs aren't in unicode, you can set it to GB something. It won't affect your other English software but if you have things in other languages, I'm not sure.