*"I find it awkward to have to type 2 letters for one, and had hoped in vain that microsoft would change this in windows 8.1"*Most people agree with you - for the reason:
- 2-3 letters for one method started in the last century and is know for the 'guessing' problems (could be solved by placing a blank space, but it's a very strange way of typing and pretty tedious). One could use such metod while typing a word or two but not
in say discussions on forums or in a BLOG
- later a better ways was designed - with Microsoft help in the form of MSKLC mentioned above which allowed us to make econimical (one button : one letter) and straight-forward keyboard layout - Phonetic one.
Phonetic layouts made with MSKLC have spread widely and during last 10-12 years have been used by huge number of people who happily forgot troublesome and tedious way of typing several letters for one Russian with the need of "special cases resolution"!
Thousands and thousands people have been using Phonetic Russian layout in XP/Vista/Windows 7 since MSKLC appearance in Windows XP more than 10 years ago!
As I already mentioned, even AATSEEL.org stopped recommending old-style "conversion fo 2-3 Latin letter combinations to Cyrillic" and started to recommend Phonetci keyboard layouts. Apple also has now Phonetic Russian layout in addition to a standard one.
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So it is strange that Microsoft went against progress history :-( - they should just add a Phonetic layout to the existing 2 standard ones (as Apple did) or offer MSKLC to people who want to build their own layout for "RU"
What people who has Windows 8 do:
a) 8.0. MSKLC does not work per people reports. Thus they install existing phonetic layouts (say from AATSEEL.org site) as "RU" or build their own phonetic layout using MSKLC under previous version of Windows and then install it under Windows 8 (installs just
fine)
b) 8.1. looks like MSKLC does work, so people can either install existing phonetic layouts as "RU" or build their own using MSKLC:
Mike wrote:
Subject: How to use Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 successfully on Windows 8.1 64bit
"...
Having looked at the problem of using MKLC 1.4 on a 64bit install of Windows 8.1, I have found that it does work (as long as text size is at 100%) if you do the following.
a) Install it as normal and then run it to create a keyboard installer.
b) run the keyboard installer. This installs the keyboard, but although it is listed in the language settings, it does not display in the language bar and cannot be accessed. However if you
c) NOW log out and then log back in again - the keyboard should now appear in the language bar, can be selected and will work. I have no idea why it is necessary to log out and in to make this happen, but it seems to work.
The preview feature doesn't work on Windows 8.1, but I don't think that is too important."
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