1. Configuring Windows Vista for use with Japanese 27 Aug 2009

2. Step one: in the control panel, find regional and language settings. Double-click on the icon.

3. Upon entering regional and language options, open the tab for keyboards and languages, and then click on the button for “change keyboards.”

4. Next, click on the add button to add a new language.

5. Find the language that you want to add (i.e. Japanese) and check the box for the language as well as Microsoft IME. Click OK when finished.

6. After clicking OK, you will return to the previous screen, only this time, the Apply button at the bottom is lit up. Click the Apply button.

7. Now, you can access IME on the taskbar. Click on the icon that reads EN to use a different language.

8. From the menu that appears, you can change your input language as well as “show the language bar.”

9. If you’re in a program where you can type (for example, Microsoft Word) clicking “show the language bar” provides you with a control panel for typing in the selected language. You can choose to type in hiragana, katakana, or romaji.

10. With Character-based languages, you can also choose to have IME convert the script or only certain word types into Chinese Characters.

11. Now you can type in different languages!!