A relative has returned to the UK from France with a PC running an OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium with the language set to French. She wants to change this to English because she's suffering dementia and her French is failing and she needs telephone support (from me) which is difficult when her PC dialogs are in French.
From [url= http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/how-to-change-windows7-from-french-to-english-on/f07ef643-618d-4cd0-bd9d-e337043e421d ]this thread[/url] I can see that she would need to upgrade to Ultimate to be able to change the language. However it appears that this is no longer possible - see eg on [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dsoftware&field-keywords=windows+7+anytime+upgrade+ultimate ]Amazon[/url]. I tried running Windows Anytime Upgrade on her PC and failed - but my French is pretty poor so it's just possible that I missed something.
She has a copy of Office installed on the PC but no disks or licence codes so I'd rather not install a new copy of Windows if I don't have to in case I lose Office. (I've run Belarc Adviser but don't fully trust that the code it found will let me reinstall.) I'm also not madly happy about paying another £70 to MS but I guess I'll have to suck that up. And finally I'm pretty busy so don't want to spend a good few hours while an install completes.
Please can any of the STW IT experts advise on my options; or at least confirm that I will need to do a fresh install.
Language visible in the bottom right hand corner?
I feel sure that if you called MS they would understand the issue and provide a solution.
The keyboard would still be a French one?
The only legal way is an upgrade or a rebuild, as you say. I've emailed you further details.
Remote support is easier than telephone support. Have a look at Teamviewer (or any one of half a dozen other remote access solutions).
Windows comes in different language editions, you can't change the language. You can change the keyboard layout though (aka input locale) and locale specific settings like currency symbol and time format etc.
Thanks all. Cougar has v kindly explained what I need to do.
And thanks TPTcruiser for your generous emailed offer.
Windows comes in different language editions, you can't change the language.
Not sure this is true. I think you get to choose language on installation, but it's a one-time choice.
I say this because I'm sitting here at my desk in France, typing away on a French-bought PC, and it's in English!
Not sure if the same applies.
I bought a Dutch copy of Windows Office but just used the product key to activate a trial copy I'd downloaded.
If they still have the product key you could just do a fresh load Windows 7 and use their product key.
That said I thought the language was set during installation and can be changed in the Control Panel.
Si vous allez dans vos paramètres principaux que vous devriez être capable de trouver une préférence de langue là-bas et changer de nouveau à l'anglais. Espérons que cela aide.
🙂