A Brain scratcher? Japanese Windows

[Shuten]

I have a notebook from Japan, a Sharp Mebius.
It has the Japanese version of Windows 98 on it and
I want to change it to the English version. There are two
questions.

#1. Is there an easy way to convert it to a english version of 98
if I have a windows 98 English CD?

#2. If I format the harddrive and install 98 will it work since the
bios is in japanese? I would assume it would since the bios
only communicates in bits and bytes and doesnt exchange
any strings. Any Ideas?

 

[bsobel]

> #1. Is there an easy way to convert it to a english version of 98
if I have a windows 98 English CD?

You could install on top, but that is (I believe) technically not supported by MS (you might wind up with some english and some japaneese strings)

> #2. If I format the harddrive and install 98 will it work since the
bios is in japanese? I would assume it would since the bios
only communicates in bits and bytes and doesnt exchange
any strings. Any Ideas?[/quote]

That shoudl work fine.

Bill

 

[Shuten]

You're pretty sure that it would work fine to format the hard drive and
reinstall a English version?

Thanks
Shuten

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Shuten
You're pretty sure that it would work fine to format the hard drive and
reinstall a English version?

Yes, thats been fine on every Japanese machine I've done that too (we have quite a few in our international labs do to localization). When we need to deal with an issue we usually like to debug an English os/software so we can better read messages/output.

Bill

 

[Shuten]

what about the keyboard configuration?
Its kind of a goofy setup of a keyboard and I want to make sure that it will handle
an english OS


Thanks for your help

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

wow, you cant just install language packs, you have to reinstall the whole thing? thats crazy talk.

 

[Shuten]

I'm not just talking about reading web pages in english,
I want everything in english. I dont think just installing a language pack will
change that, at least not on windows 98. But I could be wrong.


Also if a notebook has edo ram. Does it necessarily need edo ram?
The manufacturer shipped the computer with 64mb of 144 pin EDO so-dimm ram
and I want to upgrade it. Can I just put in another 64mb 144-pin so-dimm ram,
without the EDO..

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
wow, you cant just install language packs, you have to reinstall the whole thing? thats crazy talk.

2k and above support language packs, 98 doesn't (as far as I remember)
Bill

 

[Shuten]

what about the keyboard. Will everything stil work ok if its not a 101 but a 104 japanese/englis keyboard?

And what about the EDO ram? Does it have to be edo?

 

[AndyHui]

Everything will still work. You can select Keyboard type in the Control Panel, and either switch between JP or EN for your own needs (some keys are in a slightly different spot on a JP keyboard, so you will need to check what suits you).

You will need to purchase EDO SO-DIMMs. FPM is slower than EDO (normally RAM without the EDO designation); DDR RAM is incompatible. Processors above 166MHz require EDO RAM.