I’m looking to buy a new laptop (Acer would be preferred), and I’m hoping to find an all-English environment. Is there a particular vendor would suggest maybe on Ba De Rd. or at Guang Hua that gives good price/good quality? Or, would it be better to just get an empty box and put Windows on myself? If so, where can I find English windows? Thx.
There are two foreigners who opened a shop to provide very competitively priced service to other foreigners here, and of course they can set you up with an all-English environment. The shop is The Hub, at Roosevelt Rd. Sec. 2 #79, 7F-6. Be sure to call first – ph. 3365-1549. I’ve known one of the pair, Duncan Levine, for many many years, and he’s a very nice, honest, reliable guy, so I can personally strongly recommend their shop.
FYI, most HP (or Compaq presario) notebooks come with both english and chinese installation cd’s and instruction manuals (winxp in both chinese and english).
My friends got the new Asus W5 for a good price at Nova. It’s the store to the left in the “middle square” at the entry level. English keyboard and XP was installed at no extra cost.
A legal edition of XP?
[quote][quote]EddieG wrote:
My friends got the new Asus W5 for a good price at Nova. It’s the store to the left in the “middle square” at the entry level. English keyboard and XP was installed at no extra cost.[/quote]
A legal edition of XP?[/quote]
I would be really surprised if an Asus notebook doesnt have any sticker with an original MS license # for winxp under the case!
check out the compaq (or hp) presario M2xxx serie!
My bet - legal Chinese XP but illegal English XP - that seems to be the norm here.
That’s [i]exactly[/i] what I’ve seen here.
impossible since the license # can be used under both versions.
EDIT: what matters here is not the media windows is installed from but the license # the computer is “attached” to.
Thanks everyone for your input. I went to KMall (is it the same as Nova, I can never tell?) and found an Asus dealer who would swap in English Windows and an English keyboard at no extra charge.
5566: Thanks for answering the question for me 
mhinson: Glad that you were able to make the purchase. What computer did you get? Nova and KMall are not the same but they are situated just one block from each other.
Did you receive the OS discs and license in English?
I bought an Acer laptop last fall, and Acer’s service center provided me with the English XP CDs at no charge. They only provide ‘recovery’ CDs, but that’s true for either Chinese or English versions.
Alternatively, if you have a legal license key, you can install the English version of XP using the same license key as long as it is the exact same version. In the case of the OS that comes with the computer it is usually the OEM version of XP Pro or XP Home.
For example, if the computer comes with a Chinese OEM XP Pro license then you could install English OEM XP Pro on the computer using the same license key. The tricky part is that XP comes in home retail, home oem, pro retail, pro oem, pro volume licensing and pro nfd/eval versions which all use different license keys.
And all are commonly available in computer shops throughout Taiwan. 
or you could have just bought a mac and had dozens of inbuilt languages without even having to think about it…
or use linux and get the same for free…
so laptops with linux are free? wow… where do i get one?
thats what i’d call ‘playing with words’. nevermind… :s
he already bought a notebook, why suggesting him to buy a mac?
yep, he can install linux for free on his newly purchased notebook.
so when people ask this question again regarding english installation they might read that macs alaready have and may just consider buying a mac.
as for linux V osx V windows… either way you need hardware to run it.