If you want to input Chinese character (or other Asian languages like Japanese or Korean), the first thing you have to ensure is your Windows XP has the additional language installed. First, you will have to go to the Control Panel.

Click on Start > Control Panel.

For the sake of this tutorial, I suggest you to switch your Control Panel to Classic View if you haven’t. To do so, just click on the Switch to Classic View on the upper left of the Control Panel window.

Next, look for the icon and double click on it.  Then, in the Regional and Language Options window, navigate to the Languages tab. Then tick the Install files for East Asian languages. (Note: If you already can see Chinese character, means you already have this feature installed. Therefore you can skip this step.)

You will see a Windows message something like this:

You choose to install the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language files. This will require 230MB or more of available disk space. The files will be installed after you click OK or Apply on the Regional and Language Options dialog box.

To setup the language input, you have to click on the Details button.

To add the input language, follow these 4 steps:

1. Click on the Add button.
2. Select Chinese (PRC) for the Input Language.
3. Select Chinese (Simplified) – Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0 for Keyboard layout/IME. (Assuming that you are using Pinyin 拼音 for Chinese input.)
4. Click OK to confirm.

By default, to input Chinese character, you will have to press on the left Alt + Shift key. If you don’t want the default setting, you can always do your own setting by clicking the “Key Settings” button.

Once you have finish install this, you may want to restart your computer (or during the earlier stage). Then you should be able to see the language bar at the right bottom of your desktop with the letters “EN“.

When you want to input Chinese character, just press on the left Alt + Shift key (for default settings), then the EN will change to CN. Vice versa, if you want to input English character again.

IF you can’t see this at the bottom of your desktop, you probably haven’t enable the language toolbar. To do so, right click on your taskbar, choose Toolbars > Language bar.

Lastly, you can now input Chinese characters.

Voila~

Tip: This is not only limited to Chinese input. You can use the same method to setup other supported languages, as long as you install the corresponding input language.

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