Download and install Japanese or English XP

I live in Taiwan and my Japanese girlfriend is about to buy the most recent Acer - Windows XP, 120HD. Trouble is the only OS available is in Chinese. Acer is quite adamant that it is not possible to buy either a Japanese or English version in Taiwan.

How viable would it be to download an English or Japanese version of XP followed by the necessary drivers from Acer?

As someone who owns a mac I have to say I'm also rather intimidated by the extensive tweaking that - on the evidence of this forum - is required to make XP work well.

 

The drivers are pretty universal regardless of Windows language. English drivers should install and work fine.

As for downloading the OS, viability depends on local law enforcement.

 

Also, it depends on the extent of Japanese language support she wants. If she just wants to be able to view Japanese web sites, enter Japanese text with the IME, etc., then you can set up additional languages for XP pretty easily. However, the GUI will still mostly display the native language (Chinese in this case).

If she wants the entire Windows UI to be in Japanese or English, you might want to consider installing Vista Ultimate instead. Vista has a feature where you can totally switch the UI language (so the menus, help text, and everything are in the language you choose). However, only the Ultimate version (and I think Enterprise) have this feature.

The A150 actually runs Vista surprisingly well even with only 1GB RAM - it should be even better with 1.5GB.

Also, I don't think there's a (legal) way to "download" a different lanugage version of XP if your license is for Chinese. You might want to think about ordering an A150 from the US or UK if you want an English version of XP installed.

HTH,
David