Win 95 to Win 98 with a twist and a turn...

LoLth

OK.

I have to upgrade a win 95 machine to win 98 in work. Fair enough, not much unusual there. However, the win 95 machine is in English and the upgrade is the Win 98 Japanese second edition.

Will the drivers and language libraries etc. automatically change over to the new settings? Should I try changing the regional settings first? (windows doesn't actually have the necessary alphabet etc. unless it is the japanese version seemingly.....)

Any help?

Hobbes

Why in heck do you want to do this?

I'll ask someone and see if they have done this. But Japanese and English windows are very different.

What I think will happen is...
- Nothing. It won't install.
- You'll get half English/Japanese UI's popping up, possibly with Blobs in some.
- It will work fine.

You shouldn't have to change the regional settings but be aware your installing Japanese so everything will be in Japanese if it does install correctly.

Or are you just looking for Japanese support in English windows (for display?)

LoLth

yeah, the whole compter setup changes. New drivers for printers and everything.

All text is shown in proper format (quite impressive really!) as in top to bottom, read right to left.

gandalf

Well I would advise you to clean install a full copy of Jap Win98 on that machine. The amount of problems I've seen with the normal English update makes me shudder to think the ones you may get

Gandalf.

LoLth

I work for a financial research company. Part of the research is the Japanese stock Exchange, which needs a computer fully capable of Japanese to read the tickers. Luckily there actually is a Japanese person here to use this PC and help me with the install but I'd prefer to avoid any problems from the start.

Hobbes

Give me a couple of hours and I'll ask someone in my group. Normally though they would install Japanese onto a clean machine.

I installed Japanese 98 onto a clean machine about 2 weeks back from MSDN disks. Only thing I remember there were two patches on the disk which when I installed trashed the machine. But beyond that I don't have anything out of the ordinary to say about the install.

If you plan to use the machine yourself it is possible to download language support from MS website (I've only had to do it for Korean for my machines). It means everything will be in English until you switch over to that language.

WhiteWashMan

i would say it would ask or promt you to see if you want to change the settings or just to upgrade to win98
i would suggest if the japanese alphabet is to be used, you will have to install the fonts etc, so i would suggest doing the full upgrade and then you should be able to just change whatever is neccessary through regional settings

of course if im wrong, youre f*cked

Hobbes

Originally posted by WhiteWashMan:
of course if im wrong, youre f*cked

I'm only the European language specialist, so my knowledge of Japanese/Asia Pacific languages isn't that well up. But I do know it's a little more then just installing the fonts.

LoLth

A clean install would be my preferred method as well but there's a technical hitch with that.

We use an oracle database which has been modified to run in a company app, this requires regedit to work properly.... normally that's fine (I have step by step instructions from my predecessor) but I really don't want to go mucking about with that type of thing when it's all in Japanese!!

Update from 95 to 98 should let me keep all the applications but its the language change as well that has me a bit worried....

Kali

isnt there a way you can do a remote regedit in 98? or maybe im thinkin of NT

Hobbes

Originally posted by Kali:
isnt there a way you can do a remote regedit in 98? or maybe im thinkin of NT

I certainly hope not.

You can though create the keys on a second machine and export them to a .REG file and just double click that file on the other machine.

Your registration keys would be in English anyway? At least up until near the end of the tree.

I would assume something like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\.... wouldn't be translated?

Mayhem1

I have to agree with the above, do a clean install if at all possible. I had to do this some time ago on a job I was doing for a translation co.
The best thing to do is the most logical one, get a Japanese litterate person to sit in with you and translate the pop-up messages. This in itself can still prove tricky as there is apparently no easy way to translate from Japanese to English, their language is a bit more "descriptive"....
Otherwise do the same thing side by side on two machines, one in English, one in Japanese and compare the menu's and go from there. Anyway, good luck!

LoLth

Well, it all appears to have been a load of hassle over nothing.

turns out, they only actually need windows, internet explorer and japanese adobe acrobat reader!! No registry editing required!

So, clean install it is

Thanks for the help lads. Now, anyone know a way of getting users to actually give you full details when they say they need something done?? :P