To change regional settings in Windows 98During Windows 98 Setup, the operating system is configured for a default locale, either based on settings that Setup detects from the previous operating system or based on options that the user chooses. Windows 98 Setup also copies most international information for all other supported locales onto the user’s hard disk drive, where applications can access them. You can specify international settings during Windows 98 Setup or change the default settings afterward in Control Panel. If a US (1252) locale is desired, you must add any additional language support through the Control Panel after the machine is running.
By selecting a Custom Install, you can choose settings for your specific locale. During Setup, you can customize the following settings in the Computer Settings screen:
Windows 98 selects the English/Western European option by default.
After Setup, you can change the following settings in Control Panel:
You can configure each of these settings by defining options in custom setup scripts, as described in the following sections. If user profiles are enabled (as described in Chapter 7, "User Profiles"), the international settings preferences in Windows 98 can be saved in each user’s profile. In this case, if a single computer is used by multiple users, each user can select a different default locale.
To change local conventions after Windows 98 has been installed, use the Regional Settings option in Control Panel. This option sets the default system formats for country, language, date, time, currency, and numbers. You can also customize these formats.
To change regional settings in Windows 98
| Properties tab | Description |
|---|---|
| Regional Settings | Specifies the regional settings you want, to automatically define how dates, times, currency, and numbers are displayed and sorted. |
| Number | Specifies how numbers are displayed (including the decimal character used), how digits are grouped, and how negative numbers are shown; also specifies the measurement system used. |
| Currency | Specifies how currency is displayed (including the decimal character used), how digits are grouped, and how negative values are shown. |
| Time | Specifies how time is displayed, including the hour and minute separator; also specifies how morning and afternoon times are designated. |
| Date | Specifies the calendar type and how short and long dates are displayed; also specifies the character used as the separator between the day, the month, and the year. |
You can specify values in the [System] section of a custom setup script (such as Msbatch.inf) to define regional, keyboard layout, and multilanguage settings other than the defaults.
To specify the regional setting in Msbatch.inf, set locale= in [System] to a value listed in the [LocaleList] section of Locale.inf. The following table shows the values for regional settings that are available in certain editions of Windows 98. For some editions of Windows 98, check Locale.inf entries for the proper values associated with the region.
| Regional setting | Value | Regional setting | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | L0436 | French (Luxembourg) | L140C |
| Basque | L042D | German (Standard) | L0407 |
| Catalan | L0403 | German (Swiss) | L0807 |
| Danish | L0406 | German (Austrian) | L0C07 |
| Dutch (Standard) | L0413 | German (Luxembourg) | L1007 |
| Dutch (Belgian) | L0813 | German (Liechtenstein) | L1407 |
| English (United States) | L0409 | Icelandic | L040F |
| English (British) | L0809 | Italian (Standard) | L0410 |
| English (Australian) | L0C09 | Italian (Swiss) | L0810 |
| English (Canadian) | L1009 | Norwegian (Bokmål) | L0414 |
| English (New Zealand) | L1409 | Norwegian (Nynorsk) | L0814 |
| English (Ireland) | L1809 | Portuguese (Brazilian) | L0416 |
| English (South Africa) | L1C09 | Portuguese (Standard) | L0816 |
| Finnish | L040B | Spanish (Traditional Sort) | L040A |
| French (Standard) | L040C | Spanish (Latin American) | L080A |
| French (Belgian) | L080C | Spanish (Modern Sort) | L0C0A |
| French (Canadian) | L0C0C | Swedish | L041D |
| French (Swiss) | L100C | Spanish (Honduras) | L480A |
| Spanish (El Salvador) | L440A | Spanish (Puerto Rico) | L500A |
| Spanish (Nicaragua) | L4C0A | Spanish (Guatemala) | L100A |
| Spanish (Bolivia) | L400A | Spanish (Panama) | L180A |
| Spanish (Costa Rica) | L140A | Spanish (Venezuela) | L200A |
| Spanish (Dominican Republic) | L1C0A | Spanish (Peru) | L280A |
| Spanish (Colombia) | L240A | Spanish (Chile) | L340A |
| Spanish (Ecuador) | L300A | Spanish (Argentina) | L2C0A |
| Spanish (Paraguay) | L3C0A | Spanish (Jamaica) | L2009 |
| Spanish (Uruguay) | L380A | Albanian | L041C |
| Spanish (Caribbean) | L2409 | Bulgarian | L0402 |
| Belorussian | L0423 | Czech | L0405 |
| Croatian | L041A | Serbian | L0C1A |
| Estonian | L0425 | Latvian | L0426 |
| Hungarian | L040E | Macedonian (FYROM) | L042F |
| Lithuanian | L0427 | Romanian | L0418 |
| Polish | L0415 | Slovenian | L0424 |
| Slovak | L041B | Ukrainian | L0422 |
| Turkish | L041F | ||
Values listed in the [KeyboardList] section of the Multilng.inf file specify particular keyboards. Use one of the following strings to define the selectedKeyboard=value in the [System] section of Msbatch.inf (or a similar file).
| Keyboard layout | Keyboard value in Multilng.inf |
|---|---|
| Belgian | KEYBOARD_0000080C,be |
| Brazilian | KEYBOARD_00000416,br |
| British | KEYBOARD_00000809,uk |
| Canadian Multilingual | KEYBOARD_00001009,fc |
| Danish | KEYBOARD_00000406,da |
| Dutch | KEYBOARD_00000413,ne |
| Finnish | KEYBOARD_0000040B,fi |
| French | KEYBOARD_0000040C,fr |
| French Canadian | KEYBOARD_00000C0C,ca |
| German (Standard) | KEYBOARD_00000407,gr |
| Icelandic | KEYBOARD_0000040F,ic |
| Italian | KEYBOARD_00000410,it |
| Latin American | KEYBOARD_0000080A,la |
| Norwegian | KEYBOARD_00000414,no |
| Portuguese (Standard) | KEYBOARD_00000816,po |
| Spanish (Modern) | KEYBOARD_00000C0A,sp |
| Swedish | KEYBOARD_0000041D,sw |
| Swiss French | KEYBOARD_0000100C,sf |
| Swiss German | KEYBOARD_00000807,sg |
| United States 101 | KEYBOARD_00000409,us |
| United States-Dvorak | KEYBOARD_00020409,dv |
| United States-Left Dvorak | KEYBOARD_00030409,dv |
| United States-Right Dvorak | KEYBOARD_00040409,dv |
| United States-International | KEYBOARD_00010409,usx |
| Irish | KEYBOARD_00001809,ir |
| Belgian (Comma) | KEYBOARD_0001080C,bene |
| Canadian (Standard) | KEYBOARD_00011009,can |
| German (IBM) | KEYBOARD_00010407,gr1 |
| Italian 142 | KEYBOARD_00010410,it1 |
| Russian | KEYBOARD_00000419,ru |
| Bulgarian | KEYBOARD_00000402,bul |
| Bulgarian (Latin) | KEYBOARD_00000402,bll |
| Belorussian | KEYBOARD_00000423,BLR |
| Czech | KEYBOARD_00000405,CZ |
| Czech (Qwerty) | KEYBOARD_00010405,CZ1 |
| Czech (Programmers) | KEYBOARD_00020405,CZ2 |
| Hungarian | KEYBOARD_0000040E,HU |
| Hungarian (101 keys) | KEYBOARD_0001040E,HU1 |
| Polish | KEYBOARD_00000415,PL |
| Polish (Programmers) | KEYBOARD_00010415,PL1 |
| Romanian | KEYBOARD_00000418,RO |
| Russian (Typewriter) | KEYBOARD_00010419,RU1 |
| Serbian | KEYBOARD_00000C1A,YCC |
| Serbian (Latin) | KEYBOARD_00000C1A, ycl |
| Slovak | KEYBOARD_0000041B,SL |
| Slovak (Qwerty) | KEYBOARD_0001041B,SL1 |
| Slovenian | KEYBOARD_00000424,SLV |
| Croatian | KEYBOARD_0000041A,CR |
| Turkish (Q type) | KEYBOARD_0000041F,TUQ |
| Turkish (F type) | KEYBOARD_0001041F,TUF |
| Ukrainian | KEYBOARD_00000422,UR |
| Estonian | KEYBOARD_00000425,ES |
| Macedonian (FYROM) | KEYBOARD_0000042F,MKD |
| Latvian | KEYBOARD_00000426,LV |
| Latvian (Latin) | KEYBOARD_00000427,LT |
| Italian 142 | KEYBOARD_00000426,it1 |
| Albanian | KEYBOARD_0000041C,al |
| Greek | KEYBOARD_00000408,gk |
| Greek IBM 220 | KEYBOARD_00010408,gk220 |
| Spanish (Traditional) | KEYBOARD_0000040A,sp |
| Portuguese (Brazilian) | KEYBOARD_00010416,br1 |
| Norwegian (Nynorsk) | KEYBOARD_00000814,no |
| Latin America (El Salvador) | KEYBOARD_0000440A,la |
| Latin America (Honduras) | KEYBOARD_0000480A,la |
| Latin America (Nicaragua) | KEYBOARD_00004C0A,la |
| Latin America (Puerto Rico) | KEYBOARD_0000500A,la |
| Latin America (Bolivia) | KEYBOARD_0000400A,la |
| Greek Latin IBM 220 | KEYBOARD_00010408,gl220 |
| Greek IBM 319 | KEYBOARD_00030408, gk319 |
| Greek Latin IBM 319 | KEYBOARD_00040408,gl319 |
| Greek Latin | KEYBOARD_00050408,gkl |
Values listed in the [OptionalComponents] section of Mullang.inf specify the optional languages you can add to Windows 98: Greek, Cyrillic (Bulgarian, Belorussian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian), Central European (Albanian, Czech, Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, and Slovenian), Turkish, and Baltic (Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian). Use one of the following strings to define the multilanguage=value in the [System] section of Msbatch.inf (or a similar file).
| Language | Multilanguage value in Mullang.inf |
|---|---|
| Baltic | English and Baltic |
| Central European | English and Central European |
| Cyrillic | English and Cyrillic |
| English | English |
| Greek | English and Greek |
| Turkish | English and Turkish |
For more information about creating custom setup scripts, see Chapter 3, "Custom Installations."
The code page is an internal table that the operating system uses to relate the keys on the keyboard to the characters displayed on the screen. Different code pages provide support for the character sets and keyboard layouts used in different countries.
When you install Windows 98, Setup checks the current system configuration to determine the regional settings:
You can use the Regional Settings option in Control Panel to change the locale. This will affect the display in Windows-based applications. However, for MS-DOS-based applications and for the MS-DOS prompt, the code page installed during Setup is always used. Windows 98 does not include any feature that allows you to change the code page used by MS-DOS.
You can, however, use Changecp.exe to change the code page used for console displays (MS-DOS-based applications and the MS-DOS prompt). This application makes all the changes to fonts and other system elements in the registry and other configuration files. CHANGECP is provided with the Microsoft Windows 98 Resource Kit utilities.
This application is useful to you if your site uses a character set besides the default code page that Windows 98 Setup uses. You know that you need an alternate code page if, after installing Windows 98, you discover that your MS-DOS-based applications do not display properly—specifically, if the wrong fonts appear or the wrong characters appear as you type.
For example, the default code page installed for French Canadian under Windows 98 is 850, but your site might use code page 863 as a standard. As another example, the United States default is 437, but some companies choose to use code page 850. In these cases, use CHANGECP to install the alternate code page.
To change the code page used for MS-DOS-based applications
Alternately, you can type changecp code_page_number if you know the code page that you want.
CHANGECP automatically makes all related system changes. The next time you start Windows 98, the new code page will be used for all MS-DOS sessions.
Important
The CHANGECP utility is not designed to be used for changing code pages on a regular basis. Also, frequently switching the MS-DOS code page will confuse users of MS-DOS-based applications.