Setting up Windows 95 for Multiple Languages

Note: this page is basically for reference only, since most users have updated to newer versions of Windows.

Multiple languages versions of Windows platforms are critical for international software development, testing, and localization.

Summary

Here is a set of instructions for setting up an additional language version of Windows 95, once you have System Commander installed.

These instructions work for a Digital Celebris XL3133 with SCSI and a single 2 gigabyte hard drive partitioned into multi-fat for Windows 95, fat for Windows NT, and fat for Window 3.1/DOS. All that is important for this discussion is that you have Windows 95 in a multi-fat directory. ("Multi-fat" is a feature of System Commander.) They were not generalized, but chances are they will work for your system without much modification.

So far, this procedure has been used to set up English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese Windows 95.

These instructions assume you are using the directory "c:\SC" for your System Commander program and data files.

1. Boot into US Windows 95.

   Note - for the next step, it is important that you start out in US Windows 95!

2. Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode by doing Start->ShutDown->Restart in MS-DOS mode.
3. Change drive to the CD-ROM containing the international version(s) of Windows 95.

   If the CD-ROM doesn't appear to exist on the machine, it is because in "Command Prompt Only" mode your CD-ROM needs to be set up "manually" in config.sys and autoexec.bat. There is a good chance that the appropriate lines were commented out by Windows 95 installation - in which case all you need to do is remove the comment (REM).

   Here is how to set up the CD-ROM (the specific file names are for the multi-boot Digital machine):

   config.sys

   device=c:\somewhere\cdrom.sys /D:mydrive

   autoexec.bat

   c:\windows\command\mscdex /D:mydrive

   Then go back to step 1 and reboot into U.S. Windows 95.

4. CD into the country set that you want to install.
5. Type setup /is /id. The reason for the /is and /id flags is that scandisk will complain about filenames in other languages. You will find it impossible to install another language without these flags.
6. After this point, your instructions will be in the new language, which may pose some challenges. See Coping with a new language below.
7. Continue past initial Windows 95 install screen by pressing Enter (the other choice, ESC, is for quitting)
8. Accept license agreement (Y)
9. For the CD key, just press the center button to ignore it. Note that your MSDN subscription gives you a license to install as many versions as you like on your own machine. See the license agreement for more details.
10. Press Next
11. Change installation directory to country95, e.g. US95 ARA95.

    Note: If you have problems entering English text, see Hints at the end of this page.

12. You will see a dialog box warning about the consequences of selecting a new directory. Press OK (the highlighted choice).
13. Select Typical Windows 95 installation (default)
14. Next past Information screen
15. Next past license number screen. There will be a dialog box with 3 buttons complaining about Next, but choose the middle one (R).
16. Ignore license warning
17. Next to analyse the computers hardware
18. Do not select any additional MS products, click on Next
19. Next
20. No to create a boot disk (the lower option)
21. Next to copy Windows 95 files
22. Reboot the system.

    Here is it possible that double-byte languages may complain about code page and refuse to boot to Windows. In that case, just boot to a DOS prompt and choose "Reinstall (R)" in one of the early dialogs.

23. Enter pcname, workgroup and description. If your keyboard refuses to type Latin (English) text, see Changing keyboard defaults, below.
24. If Windows 95 gives you an error message about missing files, try to locate from your US version on the CD. Make a list of files that could not be installed and continue with the installation. On the French version, several files were missing, but the equivalent English version worked. (Risky, but better than nothing.)
25. Select time zone and check the daylight savings time box. There is a bug in some install programs, so you may need to use the alternate dialog and manually pick the number of hours from GMT.
26. Next
27. Select your printer and set it to LPT1. Your PC is not yet connected to the network and will not be able to find the print queue.
28. Accept defaults, but select NO to a print test.
29. Click OK to reboot.
30. When Windows reboots, perform a hardware test and add tcpip and Novell networking, in addition to MS client.
31. Configure standard Windows 95 networking. When you dismiss the networking dialog, do not restart the computer yet (select No).
32. Right-click on Start, and then Open. Click on Programs, and then right click on Command Prompt. Then click on Properties (using the accelerator R as a hint).

    Change the DOS memory setting to 4096. This is the fourth tab, and the drop-down list on the upper-right side of the dialog box. You will recognize the correct drop-down when you see the number 4096 at the bottom of the list.

33. (Some machines - this can be done any time): Load specific device drivers for your display, if necessary. For example, for the Digital machine it is necessary to load the Matrox MGA Millenium drivers from diskette, and to adjust the monitor and display settings in the display properties dialog. For the display adapter, choose "Have disk" (usually H is underlined).
34. Open an Explorer window, and drag the "Program Files" directory over to the new windows directory. Each language must have its own "Program Files" directory. There are side effects to this, as mentioned by both Microsoft and V-Comm, but it must be done. The next step will clear up most of the side effects.
35. Select Start->Run and type Regedit. This will start the Registry Editor.
    • Select Export (E) from the File (F) menu. Give the file a descriptive name such as "country" and place it in the System Commander directory (SC). Don't specify an extension - Regedit will automatically add ".reg" to your filename.
    • Run Wordpad by selecting Start->Run and typing "c:\Win95directory\Wordpad". You need to specify the full directory, because the registry still thinks Wordpad is in a top-level directory called "Program Files". Both Wordpad and Notepad are enabled for your new language, so you must use one of those two progams.
    • Open the file with your registry data, e.g. "c:\SC\country.reg".
    • Open the replace dialog, probably with ALT-E followed by E, or Control-H. The replace dialog can be recognized by the two edit boxes.
    • Search for
      
      C:\\Progra
         and replace it with
      C:\\country\\Progra
      
      
    • Save the file
    • Run Regedit again, and File->Import the country.reg file. This will tell the registry that you have moved the Program Files directory, but it will not take effect until you reboot.
36. Set up the System Commander files. Exit out of Windows 95 and restart in MS-DOS mode.
    • cd c:
    • scin

      Note: If this fails, as it did for Japanese Windows, reboot from a floppy disk and continue. You might also need to type "us" to switch the keyboard to English

    • Select NO if SC prompts to free disk space
    • Select "Reinstall or Update SC"
    • Press ESC past the memory warning
    • press any key twice
    • ESC to exit and reboot
37. SC should prompt for a new OS installed
    • Select SAVE
    • Enter a description and press ENTER
    • Change the directory to c:\sc\country and press Enter
    • Assign the network printer
38. You are now ready to use this new language by simply selecting it from the System Commander menu at boot time.

1. If you can't find some keys on the local keyboard, refer to the back of any DOS manual for a picture of the keyboards.
2. As soon as you get Windows 95 working, you can add English (US) as an optional second keyboard.
3. For the Celebris machines, you need to update the display properties using the"Matrox MGA Millenium Windows 95 International Drivers/Utilities V2.20" diskette.

Here are some suggestions for coping with instructions in a language you don't understand:

• A good memory will help you recognize the dialog boxes, but the best solution is to have screen shots of the various dialog boxes in English.
• You can create your own catalog of screen shots in Microsoft Word or other Windows word processors, by using ALT PrintScrn to capture each dialog box in your English system, and then pasting that image into your document. Such a list of dialog boxes comes in handy and saves untold time and misery.
• Remember that Middle-Eastern languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi) will usually have the buttons reversed right to left. For this reason you may need see which button is highlighted by default.
• Most Far Eastern languages offer hints with their menu items, because it is impossible to designate a double-byte character as an accelerator key. For example, the file dialog will contain XXXXS where XXXX is a pictogram, and S is the accelerator for &quotsave".
• Another resource is the glossaries supplied by Microsoft, usually on the first international CD. One of the glossaries is for Windows 95, and you can view it in Excel or Word, after a little reformatting.
• One of the most difficult installations is Hebrew Windows 95, because it combines &quotmostly" right-to-left dialog boxes (it would be easier if all were right-to-left), none of the English accelerators mentioned above, and a very thoroughly localized user interface. For Hebrew, I recommend printing a short glossary with the most commonly used dialog items (OK, yes, no, cancel, back up, shut down, reboot).

During the installation process (i.e. before you have a language-switching icon), you might discover that the keyboard has defaulted to the new language. For Russian other non-Latin languages, this can be catastrophic, because you can't enter any English characters.

Here are some hints for switching keyboards during installation:

• Try holding down both Right-ALT (ALT GR) and shift, and see if that changes the default to English.
• Try Right-ALT "`" (the backward apostrophe)
• If all else fails, just type a few random characters and repair the settings later when you have managed to switch the keyboard to English.

After Windows 95 is installed, you can change the keyboard simply by clicking on the blue icon on the lower right corner of your screen. For Russian/English, for example, you should see Ru/En. Click on the En to switch to an English keyboard.

To change the keyboard default, select Start->Settings->Control Panel, and click on the Regional Settings icon (a plain blue world). Then click on the right-most tab for the "Input Locales", and select "EN English(United States)". This will be in some other language, of course. Then press "Set as default", which is the button just below the three other buttons. While you are there, look at the three radio buttons which define the key sequence to switch languages.