i recently bought a japanese laptop with vista basic on it. i was wondering
if i can upgrade it with an english copy of premium so that everything is in
english but i would like to keep the japanese keyboard layout and the ime

You would need to upgrade with a Japanese version of Vista Ultimate, and
then change the language to English. Upgrades between different languages
are not supported.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (E-Mail Removed)
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"kamel_sie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:C3C84D2C-EBE5-4D4B-A7B1-(E-Mail Removed)...
>i recently bought a japanese laptop with vista basic on it. i was wondering
> if i can upgrade it with an english copy of premium so that everything is
> in
> english but i would like to keep the japanese keyboard layout and the ime

Hi kamel_sie,

No, you would have to get a full copy of English and install it cleanly, you
can't upgrade to a different language version. Your other option would be to
upgrade to Vista Ultimate in Japanese, then download and install the English
language pack and convert the system. It'd likely be cheaper and easier to
just get a full version of Vista in the preferred language and install
cleanly, you can then add keyboard support for Japanese in the regional and
language options.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"kamel_sie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:C3C84D2C-EBE5-4D4B-A7B1-(E-Mail Removed)...
>i recently bought a japanese laptop with vista basic on it. i was wondering
> if i can upgrade it with an english copy of premium so that everything is
> in
> english but i would like to keep the japanese keyboard layout and the ime