Dual boot on a pc with english xp and Chinese xp?

[Pengyou]

I am going to install a new hard drive on my computer this weekend and am wondering if it is possible to install both the English xp and Chinese xp on the same computer. I have done a dual boot with 98 and xp.

I want to try this because in the past I tried to install English QQ on my english xp and found that I had a lot of trouble with it. I have also tried installing the Chinese software and still found it to be buggy. I am hoping that by having the English and Chinese xp on my computer I will not have trouble running Chinese software.

[Don_Horhe]

Yes, but you'll need to divide your hard drive into at least 2 partitions and install each OS on a separate one. However, I advise against doing this - why don't you just get TenCent Messenger, which is basically QQ in English without all the other cr@p that comes with the Chinese version.

[Pengyou]

Thanks! Why do you advise against the dual boot with the English/Chinese OS?

Does the tencent program do voice and video chat as well as text chat?

[imron]

I would also avoid it, if for no other reason than the hassle of needing to reboot everytime you want to use a program in a different language, not to mention the hassle of installing everything on the computer twice (what happens if you want to use English MS Office but have QQ open in the background).

Is there a particular program that doesn't work with AppLocale, or with changing the default encoding for non-unicode applications to Chinese?

[liuzhou]

It is possible but seems an extreme thing to do just to get QQ to work.

What is wrong with English QQ?

[c_redman]

If the machine resources are decent, VMWare would be a good alternative to dual booting. That way, you can have Chinese and English Windows running at the same time.

[atsherrill]

I agree with c_redman. I'm a software developer, and until virtual OS programs were available (Virtual PC, VMware, ...), dual booting was sometimes necessary. But what a hassle. Not only are there problems like what's already been mentioned, but there are also problems with properly partitioning the hard drive. Each OS introduces it's own set of problems. Sometimes problems aren't apparent until AFTER you've installed the two operating systems. I'm currently running 64-bit Vista with several different VMware Server virtual machines for testing my software on different versions of Windows. It works great, and it's free.

[imron]

But probably a little overkill just to run QQ and a few old, non-unicode Chinese applications, especially when Microsoft's free AppLocale utility is designed to get around exactly this sort of problem.

[LaoWai]

On my Windows laptop using English Vista here in the U.S. I have tired the various versions of QQ, wanting to chat in Chinese with friends in China, but I can only see 乱码 in the QQ interface.

Any insights into this problem and how to correct it?

Would the QQ im program (presumably in English) recommended above permit chats in Chinese with Chinese using a native Chinese version of QQ?

Most Chinese I know are not familiar with Yahoo or MSN programs and only want to use QQ for chat communications. So I really would appreciate some advice on which QQ version to use on an Windows computer with an English operating system.

I am sure all the savy tech folks here will have a definitve solution for me

[imron]

Did you try AppLocale linked to above? Or try changing the default language for non-unicode programs to Chinese? That will almost certainly fix your problem.

[Don_Horhe]

Yes, TenCent does have voice and video chat alongside text chat, as well as file transferring.

[BertR]

You can also try the international version of QQ:

http://www.imqq.com/download.shtml

[BrandeX]

or use web.qq.com

[Pengyou]

Thanks for your good advice! In all fairness, it has been about 2.5 years since I played around with QQ. At that time I had a brand new hard drive with a fresh install of XP on it. I installed QQ on it and decided that QQ stood for "quickly and quietly" crash. I installed the English version and found it to be even less stable. I will look into the other options that you mentioned.