How can I get Chinese/Japanese characters to display properly instead of squares?

Anonymous
2009-11-25T18:51:47+00:00

I'm using Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and I have some songs in Chinese and Japanese.  In Windows Explorer, the characters would SOMETIMES show correctly and sometimes they would be blocks.  Whenever I use iTunes, they're always in blocks and in other programs (ex. synctoy 2.1 and google chrome). I've already installed the Chinese (Trad. and Simplified) and Japanese language packs but the file names still show up in blocks. I also restarted several times after installation of the languages to see if that fixed things but it didn't. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-03-16T00:54:57+00:00

Okay fine.... I stopped being lazy and found the solution by trial and error. So the trick is to change the system locale to Chinese (PRC) and then changing the system locale back to English (United States). I can now see the Simplified Chinese characters correctly in my buddyllist as well as in browser titles. I've attached a screenshot of the menus to get to the system locale. Basically go where you changed your input method and follow the screenshot below:

http://www.twitpic.com/18uhgc

This is a bug with the IME, I think, but nothing a few changes and reboots won't fix! Good luck!

Was this answer helpful?

80+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

52 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
  1. Deleted

    This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.


    Comments have been turned off. Learn more

  2. Anonymous
    2012-04-02T02:16:50+00:00

    Thanks very much, that's great help, changing the locale to chinese then back to english works. I'm running Win7 SP1 64bit.

    It can display Chinese before, some windows update broke it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2012-02-17T15:19:41+00:00

    I tried this with Korean and it worked! Thanks!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2011-12-29T04:29:31+00:00

    I don't think he understands the problem.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments