Unwanted mix of English and foreign languages on Vista machines

[Guest]

Simple problem. I have Vista home premium on an Acer laptop with English set
as the installed language. I live in Norway and the laptop has a Norwegian
keyboard arrangement and so the windows settings for language are norwegian
input and locale is Norway. So far so good. But any number of third party
progs (like Acers Empowering Technology, etc.) deliver their interface in a
mix of English AND norwegian. I just want straight up english. there are no
settings on these progs to change the language (as ALL progs should in my
opinion) This was never a prob in XP, but it seems Vistas language settings
are screwing up my English language installation.

Anyone have experience with this sort of nonsense? There are 10s of
thousands of we English speaking in a foreign nation people out there who
must be experiencing the same problem. Poorly done MS, poorly done!

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

You will need to some how get the English version of whatever software is
being displayed in the different languages, its seems they have localized
for that country. Or you can upgrade to Vista Ultimate which includes all
world wide Language Interfaces.

 

[Charlie42]

Simple problem. I have Vista home premium on an Acer laptop with English
set
as the installed language. I live in Norway and the laptop has a Norwegian
keyboard arrangement and so the windows settings for language are
norwegian
input and locale is Norway. So far so good. But any number of third party
progs (like Acers Empowering Technology, etc.) deliver their interface in
a
mix of English AND norwegian. I just want straight up english. there are
no
settings on these progs to change the language (as ALL progs should in my
opinion) This was never a prob in XP, but it seems Vistas language
settings
are screwing up my English language installation.

Anyone have experience with this sort of nonsense? There are 10s of
thousands of we English speaking in a foreign nation people out there who
must be experiencing the same problem. Poorly done MS, poorly done!

You can't hold Microsoft responsible for the behavior of third party
software. As for Acer, some of their Vista programs and installers have
localized versions, others don't. You can download more recent software from
Acer's support site, I believe they've added more languages now:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/downloads.html

You will also experience the same thing with the Vista Language Interface
Packs (not the MUI's) when they are released, MS won't translate more than
approx. 80% of the user interface in the LIP's:
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/publicsector/government/locallanguage/default.aspx

Mvh,
Charlie42

 

[Peter Meinl]

Same problem here.
Ex: The Lenovo Tools on my Thinkpad X61T with display language Englisch and
input language/keyboard German do install German user interfaces.
I did not have this poblem with XP

As a workaround I created an operator account with all settings Englisch. As
far as I remember this worked. But after a while I forgot to use this acount
for installs and now have a mixed language UI.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip Peter. I was kind of thinking of going down that path, but
was really, REALLY hoping to avoid it. I just couldn't believe MS would be so
deliberately a)stupid or b)difficult for doing such a simple and EXTREMELY
common type of install. After all, when you choose "English" as your
language, you might think that the user would like EVERYTHING they put on
their box to match, right? Oh, no.. apparently not according to MS. Windows
user since version 3, but right now, my Vista experience is starting to make
a Mac look very attractive(which can switch languages at the drop of a hat
without PAYING EVEN MORE MONEY). Microsoft: you've got the market share for
now, but keep up this sort of nonsense and it wont be a surprise when users
start jumping over to the first viable alternative that comes along in a few
years. Way to treat your customers with respect, guys. Grrr. Will post the
results of my test according you your suggestion.

 

[SKRow]

I have a mix also on a new Dell - but have no foreign language or 3rd party
software involved - the "wingding" type characters appear in Vista's
calendar, but also on web pages. Any suggestions?

 

[AlexB]

I want to share something that may or may not have a bearing on what you
experience. I just bought DELL T7400 with DELL Printer 968 & Vista Ultimate.
Everything worked just fine but I screwed up the printer. As usual I do not
read any manuals counting on intuition. The LED began to show crazy winding
wavy characters and I could not get the start up window no matter what I
tried. I could not read the text to determine where I was. I had a session
with a DELL concierge and the guy had no idea how to help me. He had to call
"a specialist." The specialist said turn the printer off and when turning it
back on press two buttons simultaneously. I actually already forgot which
ones.

The start up screen in English came back and I threaded more carefully from
there on.

Perhaps something to this effect happened to you. Look for set ups for
languages.