English XP installing Chinese software (and I don't want it to)

[roddy]

Got a nice shiny new laptop about a month ago, and have been steadily setting it up to run the way I want it to. I've obviously got a couple of Chinese IME's in place - MS's and Sogou's, but have English XP (pro) installed and the default language settings are all English.

However, for some reason when installing some programs, it opts to install the Chinese version without giving me an option. Specifically, the drivers for my bluetooth module and PowerISO.

This isn't a major hassle, I'm just wondering what it is on my system that is telling the installers to use Chinese. The only Chinese stuff I have are the IME's and Chinese versions of Word and Excel. I've gone right through the Language and Regional Settings dialogs and can't see anything that might be causing it - default language and location etc, are all fine. Nor am I accidentally selecting Chinese during the install.

Minor issue, but I really should be working so I decided it couldn't wait.

[cdn_in_bj]

In Regional and Language Options, under the Advanced tab, what is the selected for "Language for non-Unicode programs"? If it's set to Chinese (PRC), then this could be causing the problem.

Unfortunately, setting it to English causes some Chinese programs not to display properly (presumably, the ones which don't use Unicode encoding). And Chinese characters in the cmd prompt won't show properly either.

[imron]

Unfortunately, setting it to English causes some Chinese programs not to display properly (presumably, the ones which don't use Unicode encoding). And Chinese characters in the cmd prompt won't show properly either.

Unless you use AppLocale.

[cdn_in_bj]

Unless you use AppLocale.

Great tip, thanks!

[roddy]

Seems you are right - I had tried that and then uninstalled and reinstalled Bluetooth with no joy. However it seems I was only updating the drivers rather than the software, so the changes weren't taking effect. I've removed the software via Control Panel and did a full reinstall and this time it took and all my bluetooth stuff is in English again. Also reinstalled PowerISO to check that and it's also in English now.

Many thanks.

If anyone else suffers the same problem, set it to English for the install, and then switch back to Chinese. It's a case of the installer looking at that setting to choose the language, rather than asking the user.

[Senzhi]

Imron,

Great tip on the MS AppLocale Utility. Good for getting my QQ right.

Can anyone confirm this works gorgeously under Vista too?

[imron]

Before everyone credits me with the AppLocale tip. I found out about it a while back from this thread. I've not actually used it myself

[Senzhi]

... and for running under Vista: it gives an error during installation, does not provide you with an option to elevate Administrator Rights nor have a Compatibility option.

[eyes2good]

but i want that chinese softwere in my computer because i want to use chinese

problem is that when i am using qq

chinese is coming but when i am sending it is not coming at all

my qq is in strange language

it is like ????????? ?? ???? this

i want to do chinese in my computer

my windows is in english i dont want to change it but i want chinese in my computer

i have already install microsoft pinyin but no effect

[imron]

Did you try installing the AppLocale utility that was mentioned earlier in the thread?

[eFeeling]

here is the link for english version

http://im.qq.com/qq/mo.shtml?/download/qqe.shtml

Support Vista

[Quest]

Roddy, there should be a setting in registry. For example, with nvidia:

[quote][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARENVIDIA CorporationGlobalNVTweak]
"NvCplEnableAdvancedTimingPage"=dword:00000000
"NvCplExposeWin2kDualView"=dword:00000001
"NvCplMPResolveMethod"=dword:00000003
[b]"NvCplTvLocaleAutoDetect"=dword:00000001[/b]
"NvCplAllowForceTVDetection"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableActiveApp"=dword:00000001
"NoPages"=dword:40120558
"CoolBits"=dword:00000000[/quote]

Also, if you can extract the installation file, look for a file named setup.ini, in it you can find a language option:

[Languages]
Default=0x0009		// ENGLISH
count=30
key0=0x002d		// BASQUE
key1=0x0003		// CATALAN
key2=0x0804		// CHINESE_PRC
key3=0x0404		// CHINESE_TAIWAN
key4=0x001a		// CROATIAN
key5=0x0005		// CZECH
key6=0x0006		// DANISH
key7=0x0013		// DUTCH
key8=0x0009		// ENGLISH
key9=0x000b		// FINNISH
key10=0x0c0c		// FRENCH_CANADIAN
key11=0x040c		// FRENCH_STANDARD
key12=0x0007		// GERMAN
key13=0x0008		// GREEK
key14=0x000e		// HUNGARIAN
key15=0x0021		// INDONESIAN
key16=0x0010		// ITALIAN
key17=0x0011		// JAPANESE
key18=0x0012		// KOREAN
key19=0x0014		// NORWEGIAN
key20=0x0015		// POLISH
key21=0x0416		// PORTUGUESE_BRAZILIAN
key22=0x0816		// PORTUGUESE_STANDARD
key23=0x0019		// RUSSIAN
key24=0x001b		// SLOVAK
key25=0x0024		// SLOVENIAN
key26=0x000a		// SPANISH
key27=0x001d		// SWEDISH
key28=0x001e		// THAI
key29=0x001f		// TURKISH
RequireExactLangMatch=

If you need an ExactLanguage match, check this page:

http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=Q107589

[Sgt_Strider]

What is AppLocale and how does it work?

[imron]

Before the prevalence of Unicode, every different language version of windows ran in a different locale, and each different language version used a different (and incompatible) encoding for the text. This meant for example that Chinese text from a Chinese version of windows would look like garbage characters when shown on say an English version of windows. From Windows NT onwards (2000, XP, Vista etc) Windows has had native support for Unicode, meaning that text from many different languages can be combined in the same program without any issues. However there are still many legacy applications that rely on the fact that the text encoding of the application should be GB2312 or BIG5 or whatever. To fix this problem, Microsoft created the AppLocale utility, which essentially tricks an application into thinking it is running in a different locale. This means that software that was written without support for Unicode can run without any problems (there are still a couple of exceptions to this). Also, because applocale works at the application level, it doesn't require changing system settings in order to work correctly, and it means that programs written for many different languages can co-exist on the same Windows installation, without needing to change the system locale each time you want to run a program written for a different language.