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[canuck]

[codedals]

[J.]

on a NEC Valuestar. There were a few glitches with the English OS. I had to replace the Japanese system with windows as I didn't have a partition program. The "recovery disc" is on a partition of around 5 and a half GB. That's no problem except it is using up that memory. It's easy to see what partitions you have and how much memory they are using: Just click "My Computer" and then right click each "drive"( they will be lettered A, B, C, D, etc.)

When you install the English Windows you have the option of which drive to put in on. If you have partitioned your computer you can put it on the new partition if you want to keep the Japanese OS, but that option may use up quite a bit of memory. However if you do like I did and install the English over the Japanese "wiping it out", it may actually not be really wiped out at all and sitting there using memory. I had to manually delete a lot of Japanese software, and probably didn't get it all. I ran out of memory pretty quick, so I put in another memory card and that fixed all the problems.

However you will need to replace the Japanese software with English software. You won't need to buy much. There are a lot of good free programs out there, including OpenOffice, Avast anti-virus, ZoneAlarm firewall, Picasa photo editor, and the Firefox Browser (with Foxit PDF reader). One place to check for them is PC magazine, online. They test and rate the programs.

You may have to hunt up additional drivers, though. When I changed to English OS I had no sound. I had to find an appropriate driver on the net. Likewise for my graphics card, keyboard and a few more things. If you aren't patient, I say don't try it. But if you are you can learn a lot.

I use a Japanese computer at work with an English Firefox browser and Open Office installed, but I have to say the popup messages are a real pain, and with Windows one thing is guaranteed, they are endless.

I would love to have installed Ubuntu or a Linux-based OS because of the lack of virus-related maintenance. Someday I will get around to it, but probably may buy a Mac before that. When I get a second computer then I will really feel free to play around with this one.

Good luck!

[JU!]

I have this same decision to make soon as well. My plan is to buy a European Laptop and if I need a Japanese OS buy Japanese Vista etc in Japan. As stated before in post by other people, it could cause more probs than it's worth if it gets an error etc. I was using my friends Japanese laptop recently and it was hard for me to navigate sometimes, because of the large amounts of Kanji involved.

[JimDunlop2]