Buying a laptop in Japan with English OS

Hello Sakura, welcome to the Seven Forums.

A language pack transforms your Windows 7 Ultimate (or Enterprise) completely to the chosen language. A language pack is an optional Windows update, and as such it can only change the language of Windows own features and dialogs. Third party software and applications are not affected, so if you have got a Japanese OS preinstalled, I'll bet that all bloatware, including preinstalled Adobe Reader and Norton is in Japanese, meaning you have to reinstall English versions. As you already know, there are 35 languages available, optional updates showing 34 languages to add on top of your original language.

I am a long time language pack user, have been using multilingual Windows since it was made possible in early beta versions of Vista. Based on my own experience I can say you are hardly going to notice the original language was not English. I say hardly because you still have remains of the original language visible, but not too much to disturb your computing.

Here's an example what I mean, a screenshot from an original German Windows Ultimate, turned to English using language pack. If I check for instance audio devices, I can see that the device names are still in German:



No big deal, I can live with that.

A very positive thing using language packs is that it allows you to have multiple languages on one computer; a language pack is not universal i.e. it does not change the language of all user accounts. You can assign a different language to every user account.

Check this post of mine from couple months back. There's more information about language packs, as well as links to other language pack related topics. Come back with more questions if you have any.

Kari

A Windows install media, DVD or downloaded ISO file, normally contains only one language. Installing Windows must therefore be done using that language, any additional languages installed afterwards. In other words, if you have a Japanese install media the installation process and all dialogs are in Japanese, and you can change the language only after installation is completed and a language pack downloaded from Windows Update is installed.

Some computer manufacturers supply a multilingual install media, in multilingual market areas. This is normally done so, that when a new computer is booted first time, it let's user choose the language of Windows. This choice can be made one time only, a later full system recovery to factory settings remembers the original choice and don't let user to change language any more. For instance, all HP computers I buy from my native Finland come with the choice of Finnish, Swedish and English; the choice has to be made when booted first time, and can not be later reverted.

I don't think you get this choice in Japan.

My conclusion: if you buy a new PC in Japan, it most probably comes with a preinstalled Japanese Windows. To change it to English, you have to download and install English language pack, or buy English install media and replace the preinstalled OS with that.

Kari

I think that's a right decision, Sakura. That way you get all included third party software in English, as well as those few things language pack does not translate (re: audio device in my first reply).

In my opinion, it's always better in a multilingual setup to use the main language as install language, and add other needed languages later.

Kari