Windows XP comes with built-in support for inputting languages other than English. As a Singaporean Chinese, I am thrilled that I can input Chinese characters into my applications, such as Word, Notepad, and even my .NET applications.

Here is how you can configure Windows XP to support the Chinese language:

Figure 13. Installing the Chinese language support

4. Click OK. Windows XP will install the necessary files for the new languages. You will need your Windows XP installation disk.
5. Windows will restart.
6. After the restart, go back to the same window (as shown in Figure 13) and click on the Details... button.
7. The Text Services and Input Languages window will be displayed, as shown in Figure 14.



8. Click the Add... button to display the Add Input Language window (see Figure 15).



9. Select "Chinese (PRC)" as the input language and select "Chinese (Simplified) - Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0" as the keyboard layout/IME. Click on OK.

10. Under the Installed services group, select the "Chinese (Simplified) - Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0"service and click on the Properties... button (see Figure 16).



11. In the Conversion mode group, select "Sentence". In the Candidate option group, check the "Prompt step by step" checkbox (see Figure 17). Click OK.



12. You should now see the language bar displayed in the Taskbar (see Figure 18).



13. To switch to Chinese input, you can either use the Taskbar or press the Left Alt+Shift key combination to toggle between English and Chinese input.

14. To test it out, use Notepad. As you type the "hanyupinyin" of the Chinese character, a list of characters that matches it will be displayed. To select the desired character, simply press its numeric equivalent (see Figure 19).