japanese character typing on Win 7? and couple of Q's and concern about switching back to Windows.

Hi all,

I think it's going to be my first post in here ever. I am lurking in the past 1 week and it's been a very delightful experience. I received many useful information that I was wondering about before, explained direct/indirectly.

Anyway. I am about to make a convert back to Windows after a very pleasant experience with Macbook pro for the last 3 years. I need a new laptop, and one of the reason just being that I d islike the mid range graphic card that they put inside the new Macbook pro lineup. I am holding up on gaming in this past 3 years (except for Guild Wars) mainly due to the lack of available game on Mac and the last year my laptop just can't keep up with the games demands anymore (not to mention the hassle of switching back to bootcamp and OSX back and forth).

Anyway, I have several concern in regard of this switching back to Windows matter.

1) I hate Blue Screen of Death and my previous laptops before Mac (Dell, and Acer), always carry this problem after 1 1/2 years of their lives. Now, my question is, does this BSoD still appearing left and right since Windows 7? Not to create a Mac vs Win debate, but, of all this 3 years owning Macbook pro, I never, even once got similar problem. I know they have similar reference to BSoD, I think is White Screen of Death. I don't know the diagnose of the BSoD on my case since it appeared and left pretty quickly.

2) One of the reason I dislike Windows 3 years back is due to 2 reasons. One, finding drivers! Two, Unpredictable!

Let me explain more clearly. I constantly felt hopeless from time to time when I wanted to install something from my old laptop and found out that I misplaced the CD driver. With crappy internet that I got in here, means it's a lost cause until I can find the CD. With Mac, all already came pre loaded, I don't even need to install the CD and first time I plug my printer/scanner, it already detected and workable.

Point number 2, I have so many times trying to install a new program from CD/DvD and it stopped in the middle of the installation with no apparent reason. This frustrate me so much since I buy something and I expect it to work, and this can't even get into the installation phase. Also, other example is when I was gaming and suddenly the game ended and I'm being thrown back into desktop with not even a pop up explaining what happened...

My question is, does this problem becoming more and more less or is it just the same?

Last, which brings me to my main question. I stayed at Japan for this past year and will travel back and forth to Japan in the future. Also, business and relationship is also with Japanese. In short, I need to write a lot of emails and read Japanese character a lot. My problem is, with my previous Win XP, I can't change into Japanese words/character without buggy 3rd party program unless I want to buy Japanese Windows XP CD. I did some research prior this post that Win 7 Ultimate have a lot of language pack inside. However, my wish is not to change my entire system language into Japanese, but rather, want to type in Japanese character on the spot.

For OSX, I can just put it in the toolbar with my own choice of languages and when I want to type email, etc using Japanese, I can just toggle down, choose which version of word I want to type on (Japanese have 3 different writing/reading characters. Kanji (Chinese characters), hiragana (used for other Japanese word that isn't Kanji), and katakana (which mainly used for foreign words that got absorbed into Japanese) and that's it, I can use it directly.

Now the main question is, can I do the same with Windows 7 or do I need to buy the Ultimate pack and install the Win Japanese version for the only option?

Thanks to all who read, please excuse my grammar/mistakes since English isn't my first language.


Cheers,

Tora

PS: Sorry for the long read.

 

1. Honestly, I've never seen BSOD in windows for the past 10 years.

2. It sometimes will crash, but that's not window's fault, it's because of the game's bug as it's programmed properly, the game would react the same way in a Mac as well, if a Mac can even play the game in first place that is.

はい、日本語のシスタムに変わらずに、日本語おタイプできます。
Typed in english windows 7, you don't have to change the system language, you don't have to change the UI language, you don't even have to download the japanese language pack. Like OS X, you just add it to the toolbar of language you want to type with.

 

Thanks for the reply fzhfzh. Is that mean that I don't need the more expensive Win 7 Ultimate just to be able to type in Japanese? It's very comforting to know that Win 7 has developed significantly.

IIRC from some thread, you are staying in Singapore? If yes I will need your further help, maybe through a pm. Is it alright?

 

I don't know what kind of graphics needs you have, but I think you should stay with the Mac.

 

1 last time i had a bosd without searching for trouble was .... we i can't recall it the only way i found to have a bsod was to oc my cpu until the hardware failed

2 win 7 comes with alot of driver preinstaled and you generaly don't neeed to install anywthing on top of it and they run flawlessly with only one exception

how ever you seem to wanna switch to window for more powerfull gpu capacitie then you might have to sacrifice the above statement cause for gaming you require generally the most up to date driver and these are not made by microsoft and as such sometime cause problem
(then again the worst crash a driver isu was able to give me was a black screen for 5 second then a little pop-up saying your graphic driver has crashed and windows recovered it)

 

Yes, win 7 ultimate only provides you with the multitude of languages for the UI, meaning you can switch to different language versions of the windows which will have different languages for the windows menu, but for language input it doesn't matter.

Yes, i'm staying in Singapore, sure, you can pm me.

 

Thanks for the kind replies people!

granyte thank you for the explanation

Don Quixote, I want to be able to play some of the latest title at the least medium to high setting I have held on to my gaming needs this past 3 years and I want to experience it once more before I get too old

fzhfzh, I will pm you, thanks