Windows Update in Japanese
 

Hi everyone. My brother runs Windows XP Pro and when he clicks on the Windows Update button it takes him to the update site, but its all in Japanese. The address in the address bar ends with /default.aspx?ln=jp but mine ends in /default.aspx?ln=en-us. He hasn't got a Japanese version of WinXP, his time zone is set to Canberra/Melbourne/Sydney and I remember that I never said we were in Japan when I installed Windows on his PC.

I can just change the ln=jp to ln=en-us and it comes up in English but does anyone know why this might happen, and how I can prevent it from loading in Japanese?

FIRST FIX, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I am first in line.

I found two articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. To be honest, it's the first time I found anything without having to click four dozen different links....

Anyway,

What might have happened....

Hmmmm... only applies to 98....

maybe this?

What else might have happened....


Man, am I bored....

Ack, I feel like a gump now for not searching the knowledge base well. I searched Google and the knowledge base for things like 'windows update japanese' but I see it's not that specific. But his regional settings are all correct (I've got access to his computer right now) and the IE languages have only English in the list. So I exhausted those avenues there already, apologies for not mentioning that earlier.

Well......damn.

What about the Regional and Language settings in the control panel?

Is all that okay?

Hmmm.....I like the strange problems.

Edit: I'm such a dork. I should have thought of this first.

Just change the URL to the english version of the site and off to the left is an option to change the settings. Inside you can change what language the page displays in. I'm looking at the Arabic page right now. Just make the changes and apply.

I should have thought of this first, but what can I say. It was early.

Cheers guthmund, unfortunately it's still a mystery! Time zone is in Australia, the regional and language settings in the Control Panel are all English and English-related, the IE Language options have US English listed as the only allowed language, and the Windows Update site has the 'English (recommended)' radio button marked already, so it's not giving me Japanese because of that. Basically there's no mention of Japan or Japanese anywhere in the whole computer! It's not a Japanese version of Windows, of course.

But hey, it's not a big deal since I can just change it to English in the address bar, but I suppose this'll by a mystery for the ages :)