Windows 2000 has many features, such as a new interface, Web integration, enhanced hardware support, and compatibility. Apart from all this, there’s also a small but useful feature that’ll gladden the heart of many an Indian—Indian language support.
Yes, you got it right. Windows 2000 has Hindi, Konkani, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Tamil incorporated. So, you can now have anything—from desktops to the start menu to Web pages—in all these languages. Even registry values and login names can be in any of these languages.
All this is neatly hidden away in something called “Indic.” There’s also an on-screen keyboard utility that helps you type in these languages. Incidentally, languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Cryllic, etc, are also included.
The following steps will get yourself up and running with an Indian language:
- Go to Control Panel>Regional Options
- In the General tab, look for and check the language Indic in the Language Settings section, and click on Apply. You’ll need the Windows 2000 CD at this point
- The computer will be restarted
- Go to Control Panel>Regional
Options again
- In the Input locales tab, go to the Installed Input Locales section, and click Add
In the window that opens in the Input Locales pull down menu, search and select your language—Hindi in this case
- Click OK
- Click OK again
You’re done, and ready to go. You don’t need any special Indian language fonts. Most standard Windows fonts will do.
To check your setup, open Notepad from Accessories>Notepad. Press Alt+Shift to switch languages, or select Hindi from the Taskbar Language changing indicator. It first reads EN, and should change to HI.
Go to Accessories>Accessibility>On Screen Keyboard for the on-screen keyboard. It helps you type in Hindi and familiarizes you with the keyboard layout.
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