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Windows XP in French


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[quote user="viva"]

Great found it,

Now the real fun starts[8-)]!

[/quote]

And it is fun, believe me.  My French is really basic, learnt mostly from reading Leclerc and Intermarche publicity, so only OK for shopping,  and I have had French XP now for 11 months.  Add to that that I came from Windows '98 and had never seen XP before............. 

I have learnt to live with it although I do still have quite a few panics, especially when I get warning type dialogue boxes which ask me for a reply.

Anne

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As far as I know you can't change the basic language set up, at least I"ve never managed to, but I didn't try too hard.  I don't think you will have too much trouble with it in French, most of it's fairly self evident and you can always just click on things and see what happens. If you are about to do something serious you always get a warning.

Chris

 

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[quote user="Christine Animal"]

I was wondering if you go into Panneau de Configuration, then Options Régionales et Linguistiques, is it possible to change the languarge to English?  Mine is on French at the moment and I don't dare try to change it...

[/quote]

No, that is the first thing I tried, however, you can change the language of the keyboard there and, if you touchtype you just go for it ignoring whatever is printed on the actual keys.  My computer is HP and so the system backup is pre-loaded on a partition on the HD and I have no CD.  Perhaps if you have a CD, you can choose a language.  It is worth trying to change the language of the keyboard though - it can be changed back & forwards at will and is useful to have a dual language keyboard.

Anne
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My wifes new laptop is a HP and it is also all in French. I asked at the shop if it could be changed into English and they said possibly but it would invalidate the warranty (not that that's ever worth anything). Also there would be a big chance of stuffing the computer up permenantly (not sure how this could happen, XP is only software).

But she's enjoying using it i French and when we have problems as you always do with computers, I sit next to her with my Aussie laptop and we normally work the problems out with the aid of the internet.

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To change to an English Windows XP you will need to buy a copy of XP in england (about 160 pounds over the net) and install it over the top of the french one.  (xp in french is under 100 euros....).  I've found no way to change the language - using it in French is far more interesting...
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No, you can't change the language from the CD. English and French Windows XP are different software packages. It's not just a matter of translating the words - some things are in slightly different places, and in different formats, in each. The only way you can convert a French language machine to English is to buy a copy of Windows in English and re-instal Windows from that - which would probably invalidate the warranty. The 'FR' and 'EN' on the toolbar merely indicate the chosen keyboard layout.

We have both French and English XP (on different machines). Don't worry, you can use English versions of software with French WIndows XP, and vice versa. The only time I have come against a problem is trying to run a cover disc from an Engtlish magazine, which would not open on the French computer (the programs were still accesible from the disc, it was just the menu that would not work). It's also a bit of a headache, for some reason, trying to link the two via a network.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Can someone please tell me where I can find excel or word on windows xp ( I need easy to follow instructions because I can't find it anywhere!)

I can only find a word pad.

I am trying to find the area where I can write documents .

Thanks

 

 

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I apologise if this is a really numpty question (I fall into the

"bearly literate" catagory), but have you gat Office (tm, c, r)

installed? I didn't think that Excel and Word were bundled with XP.

If you haven't got Office installed, then I have a feeling that if you

get a UK edition, all the menus for Excel, Word, etc will come up in

English even if you have a French version of Windows. I think that's

right - my BIL works for Microsoft (boo, hiss on one hand, on the other

hand family members get FREE software - hooray!), and I'm sure he told

me this. We're 100% French, because otherwise I'd get confused.

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No , I haven't got Office just bog standard windows xp.

Do you know if there is anywhere I can write letters other than on the Note pad facilty?  Its just that notepad/ book looks very basic indeed.

I am after the area that I had on UK windows 98 , where you get the annoying 'thing, dog, cat ' popping  up every 5 minutes that says something along the lines of  ' it looks as though you are writing a letter - do you need some help?

 

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Viva

Where is MS word and Excel?  Simple answer, its not there.  If you are thinking like I did that after spending £700 on a PC that you would get Microsoft office installed with it, you are also mistaken[:'(].  You will have to buy Microsoft office separately to get MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc although, you can get by with the MS works package for letters and spreadsheets  ( For letters, go to the works launcher button and open the word processor package, its like word but more basic with less options etc)  if you are not too fussy about some of the attributes that you can get from Excel for your speadsheets, the spreadsheet package is not that bad either. 

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If you want all the packages bundled in Microsoft Office such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint etc then search and download Openoffice from

www.openoffice.org

You can do all the same things as MS Office XP pro and export PDFs

It's free!!! not 135Quid but really free just like Firefox internet explorer and Thunderbird mail client program

I've been using it for 2 years and am very pleased.

Microsoft is pants!

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of course you can use your french XP in English, you can also specify what keyboard layout or input method to use. No it will not affect the software, so I really don't understand why a shop would say it invalidates a warranty - unless they then couldn't sort out any problems you might have in the future because they themselves couldn't understand!

As a developer of internationalised applications I have to regularly switch input locales / input methods / etc - and no I don't speak portuguese or German, let alone Japanese or Korean!

The parts you may or may not be able to change the language of (depending if the application is properly internationalised) are the applications installed subsequently, i.e. not the operating system. For example, I have English office XP installed which is in English on my french XP, however the yes/no dialogs shown by office are the system ones which are of course in french...

Look up 'locale' and 'input locale' in the installed help. You do have to reboot before the settings take effect (sometimes more than once!) - but then, this is Windows we're talking about :)

hoverfrog

(who wants a MAc Pro after having played with one in anger this week!!)

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Reply to Hoverfrog.

You must have the US English International version that contains all the main Western European languages.

I believe Microsoft in future will only be shipping that version to Western Europe. It will enable us to install whichever language that we prefer.

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ah, yes, the MUI applies only to XP prof not XP home and can only be installed over an English XP :(

all the details are here:

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/DrIntl/faqs/MUIFaq.mspx

Doesn't stop you changing the keyboard layout to use though!

Interestingly, on french Win98, if you boot into the bios then the keyboard layout is english by default, as is the bios - makes life rather complicated when attempting to fix things for non-computer savvy french friends!!

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