"Stanley" <w97667@hotmail.com> wrote...
> I am going to purchase a vista English version because of its
> English-style operating menu,
> would there be any problem handling Chinese characters?
It depends on the applications you plan to run.
English-language Vista itself, has no problem displaying or handling Chinese
chararcters; no matter which edition you use (Home, Business, Ultimate).
Vista has built-in support for Unicode, as well as many East Asian
codepages: Simplified, Traditional, Big5 (Codepage 950), and oher CJK
codepages are well-represented. For example, the file c_950.nls in System32
directory contains the codepage support for Big5; likewise c_936.nls
(Simplified), etc. The IME allows you to input Chinese characters in a few
different ways.
You can install and run the Simplified or Traditional Chinese versions of
Microsoft Office on English language Vista. All the Office stuff will be in
Chinese; all the Vista stuff will be in English (at least, I've succesfully
done this for Japanese; and I believe it is the same for Chinese and Korean
versions). Use the IME to configure Chinese keyboards and input Chinese
text.
Where you may have problems is with applications that "assume" they are
running on a specific language OS, and say "give me the default character
set, because I'll assume it is Chinese". This works okay on a Chinese
version of Windows. But it will not work on an English version of Windows.
Chinese text may appear as a series of empty boxes, or question marks. In
this case, you need to go into Control Panel, Regional and language Options,
and set the "Language for non-Unicode programs" to the right Chinese
codepage. Then, if an application requests the "default" system language,
without specifically asking for English, Chinese, etc, it will always get
Chinese.
If you buy Vista Ultimate edition, you will be able to install a Chinese MUI
(Multi-lingual User Interface Pack) onto an English version of Windows, and
make it look and behave pretty much the same as a Chinese version of
Windows. But this is not required, if you don't mind English menus, and you
run applications which are either (1) Unicode or (2) smart enough to request
the right language from the Operating System. With the Vista Home and
Business editions of Vista, you cannot add additional MUI langauges to the
base operating system langauge. To be clear: Vista Home and Business can
still display and write other languages; it just won't use any other
language for its own menus, dialogues etc.
If you have the chance to test your applications on an English language
Vista before you buy, that might avoid problems later on. But generally, you
should be okay.
Hope this helps,
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au