Language setting for non-Unicode programs

To change the language setting for non-Unicode programs under Windows XP you may need to change the setting of the taskbar and start menu first to "Classic Start Menu" in order to access all the options of Control Panel:

Next, open "Regional and Language Options" in Control Panel and click the Advanced tab:

Set the language for non-Unicode programs to English, but there is no need to check the default user account settings box. You may need to check the box for the current language of your Windows in the code page conversion tables list.

Click the Regional Options tab, and verify that the language and number settings of Windows has not changed:

You can choose here any language supported by Windows. Click Apply > OK to finalize the changes.

Remarks

• This fix has been designed for Windows XP. For later versions of Windows, you can access the language setting of non-Unicode programs as follows: Under Windows 7 and 8, open ‘Control Panel’ -> ‘Clock, Language, and Region’ -> ‘Change date, time or number formats’ and then on the pop-up window select the ‘Administrative’ tab. Under Windows Vista this procedure is likely the same, but this has not been verfied.
• The problem of the language setting for non-Unicode programs came to my attention in the fall of 2007. A Japanese and a few Chinese students in my advanced time series class noticed that EasyReg did not work on their Japanese and Chinese Windows versions. In particular the menus did not open. After some experimentations I figured out that the problem was due to the fact that the language for non-Unicode programs was set to Japanese and Chinese, respectively, and that changing the language to English solved the problem without affecting the language of Windows itself. However, some non-Unicode programs developed under non-English versions of Windows may no longer work, so you may need to change the language setting of non-Unicode programs to their original settings before you can use them.
• This page has been translated in Swedish by Daniela Milton.

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