East Asian languages - left-over files?

[Andrew McDonald]

I installed East Asian languages from the Regional and Language Options Control Panel applet so I
could see Japanese web pages properly. Then I decided I didn't want it so I removed it. Recently I
added it back again, and now I notice some startup items have been added in the IME folder. They
definitely weren't there last time, so why are they there now? A recent Windows Update? Perhaps an
Office XP Service Pack (I'm using SP3)?

Un-ticking the box to remove these languages from Windows has left the startup entries and the files
they point to in place, so does the uninstaller for this feature simply not work? Is it safe to
simply delete the C:\Windows\IME and C:\Windows\System32\IME folders? They're taking up 100 MB!

Andrew

 

[CS]

I installed East Asian languages from the Regional and Language Options Control Panel applet so I
could see Japanese web pages properly. Then I decided I didn't want it so I removed it. Recently I
added it back again, and now I notice some startup items have been added in the IME folder. They
definitely weren't there last time, so why are they there now? A recent Windows Update? Perhaps an
Office XP Service Pack (I'm using SP3)?

Un-ticking the box to remove these languages from Windows has left the startup entries and the files
they point to in place, so does the uninstaller for this feature simply not work? Is it safe to
simply delete the C:\Windows\IME and C:\Windows\System32\IME folders? They're taking up 100 MB!

Andrew

The IME installation is a one way process it seems. The removal or
uninstalling of the East Asian languages does not remove all the junk
that gathers in both of those IME folders. Yes, you can delete both
folders. If you have to re-install Japanese, Chinese, or Korean for
some reason, those folders will be built again.

I don't know about the registry entries, however. There seems to be
some that are generated but I don't believe deleting those folders
will have any effect on the registry. Also, delete all the *.TTC
fonts that have been installed to c:\windows\fonts which is a hidden
system folder. Those will add up to around 75mb.

 

[Guest]

I also installed this thing to display japanese, i only needed it the one time and also tried to remove it by unticking that box, but apart from a few changes it just hangs around (all 230mb of it)

There must be a proper way to remove it all

I hope someone knows how