language support

I bought a Lenovo Ideapad in China but need to change the language to English. How do I change this. The system os is Windows XP Home Simplified Chinese

 

The language is set by going to the Control Panel, and finding Regional and Language Options. If it is Chinese, you might have to go by the icon. Mine is a globe on a stand. Double click it. The middle tab is Languages. The top section has Details. The bottom section has 2 check boxes, uncheck them (one is for right to left languages). Click on Details. The left tab is Settings. The drop down menu lists languages that the computer has set. The one that shows is the one used when the computer starts. If English is not there, the top button on the right is Add. By clicking that, it will present 2 drop down menus. Both give a long list of languages. The top one is the input language and the bottom one is keyboard layout.

Good luck

 

I still can't change the OS language. The second bottom check box is visible but unavailable. What can I do?

 

In reading
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/win2k/setup/changeUI.mspx
I see that there is another section on the Languages tab, under Supplemental Language Support. It's called Languages Used in Menus and Dialogs. I do not have this and maybe you do not either.
This webpage has a link to
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/win2k/setup/commandline.mspx
on how to install Multilingual User Interface. My system has the file muisetup.exe in some directory under Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. When I tried to execute this file it said that this interface pack cannot be installed on this platform. I am running XP SP2 Home. Microsoft says muisetup.exe is part of Professional, not Home.

Since the second box on your system is blanked out, the system might not have other languages, like English, on it.

I've read that some people have said that you cannot change the default Windows language systemwide, just that you can add language Support for a language for e-mail and other general purposes, which is what I did on my system.