Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

Customizing Your Computer’s Input Devices, Regional Settings, and Date/Time

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Optimizing Your Computer’s Regional and Language Settings

In a global-connected world, you may often find yourself working in another coun-

try or working with a computer from another country. If this is the case, you may

want to adjust the computer’s regional settings, language settings, or both.

Regional settings control the default units of measurement, currency, and date for-

matting. By specifying that you are in a particular region of the world, you choose all

the appropriate settings for that region. To configure regional settings, complete the

following steps:

1. In the Control Panel, click Clock, Language, and Region and then click Regional

and Language Options.

2. On the Formats tab, use the “Current format” list to select a country or region,

as shown in Figure 5-15. The Examples area should now display the formatting

standards for the selected region.

Figure 5-15. Configuring regional settings

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Chapter 5: Customizing Your Computer’s Hardware Devices

3. To customize these settings, click “Customize this format” and then use the Cus-

tomize Regional Options dialog box to modify the basic number, currency, time,

and date settings for the region. When you are finished, click OK to close the

Customize Regional Options dialog box.

4. Some software and services provide you with local information, such as news

and weather. On the Location tab, you can use the selection list provided to set

either the current location or the location for which you want to get local news

and weather information.

5. On the Keyboards and Languages tab, click “Change keyboards.” In the “Text

services and input languages” dialog box, use the “Default input language” selec-

tion list to set the default input language to use with the keyboard.

6. If the computer has multiple input languages, a language bar is docked to the

taskbar by default so that you can choose the input language. You can use the

options on the Language Bar tab to control whether and how the language bar is

displayed.

7. If the computer has multiple input languages, you can shift among input lan-

guages by pressing Left-Alt-Shift by default. On the Advanced Settings tab, you

can set hot keys for switching among input languages and hot keys to switch to a

specific input language as well. Under “Hot keys for input languages,” select the

desired Action, such as “To English (United States) – US,” and then click

Change Key Sequence. In the Change Key Sequence dialog box, select the Enable

Key Sequence checkbox, select the desired key sequence, such as Ctrl-0, and

then click OK.

8. Click OK to save these settings.

You can easily change the display and input languages for Windows Vista. Some lan-

guages are included with your versions of Windows Vista. Other languages you need

to purchase and install.

To configure support for additional display and input languages, complete the fol-

lowing steps:

1. In the Control Panel, click Clock, Language, and Region and then click Regional

and Language Options.

2. On the Keyboards and Languages tab, click “Install/uninstall languages.”

3. Click “Install languages.”

4. Select the languages to install or click Browse to locate the folder that contains

the language files.

5. Click Next and then click Finish.