Chinese on XP without installation-CD?

[Guest alexmagnus]

Hello forum. I'm new here, I'm from Germany and I am almost a complete beginner in Chinese. First of all, I would like to install Chinese on my PC but I have lost the installation CD (I have Windows XP). Is there any other way? Thanks.

[adrianlondon]

As far as I'm aware you need an XP CD (hint : doesn't have to be yours). The support for SE Asian Languages (as it calls them) requires about 250Mb of stuff, and I don't think the individual files are hosted anywhere.

[stoney]

I copied the simsun.ttc font file from the fonts folder of another computer. I installed this in my laptop font folder, and it seems to work ok. You might be able to find it on the internet. The file is about 10 Meg.

[adrianlondon]

You can install fonts easily, but having a chinese font doesn't install the chinese "keyboard" and pinyin (or whatever) support.

[Fontty]

Hallo Alexmagnus,

A friend from Uni sent me some guidance to enable me achieve that. I have done a different way just by playing around with my system but it worked but I have no record of how I managed that so try this link first and let me know if it worked.

http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/asianlanguageinstallation_XP.html

Franco

[stephanhodges]

Also, look on your computer for a directory named "I386". Many installers put the installation CD files onto the computer these days, because of the large hard drives.

In that case, if it asks for a CD, you could point to that directory. The reason I say "if" is because systems that already have that directory often have a registry entry pointing to it, and XP will automatically find it and install without any user input required.

You can always try and install Asian fonts, and then cancel.

[Guest alexmagnus]

Well, I found 15 directories called i386.... are they all the same?

[kafrin]

Hello,

In fact I just installed Chinese font on my Windows XP yesterday.

Download from

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ime/default.mspx

Then download both traditional and simplified versions.

Then you have to enable them using Control Panel/Languages.

Hope it goes well. It is very exciting to be able to type Chinese for the first time!!

[Guest alexmagnus]

I installed it! 谢谢你们！