Differences between Windows XP (US) and (UK) versions?

XiZiT

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
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First off, I am an American and I reside here. However, I am trying Windows XP for the first time and its the UK version. I notice all sites default to .uk (msn, aim, etc.), I also notice the systray timeclock is 'military' time.... what other annoyances am I going to have to encounter?

Any info would be helpful. Thanks.
 

pakigang

Member
Oct 31, 2004
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If you set your regional setting to US you don't have a prob. Actually the winxp prof. doesn't has version on country based, i don't know about home cause never used it. But surely its the same.
 

dashiki

Senior member
Jan 24, 2005
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you can use everst to change the region. that is what I did I made a few pc's for friends with Windows Nemisis 2.0 which is a UK release with Office 2003 included
 

pavane

Junior Member
Feb 4, 2005
5
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0
Welcome to our world, where words are spelt as they should be. If this really is such an issue, then do as advised and alter the sections in the control panel/Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options/Regional and Language Options. Change all settings to be default English (US) - three tabs 1)Regional Options - change two boxes to reflect English(United States). 2) Languages - select "Details", and change the default input language to include English (United States) ... *hint* you can select to remove English (United Kingdom) - but this will not be removed finally until you reboot the system. 3) Advanced - Ensure that you have "Language for non-Unicode programs(programmes) set to English (United States). Once these steps have been completed, your system - sadly - will now be a US system.
NB - Some applications may need re-installing if they have installation dependant dictionaries, or redefining what the default dictionary should be per application
Hope this helps
 

hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
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All the english versions of XP are exactly the same. It just depends on the settings (regional as stated above) that the OEM sets when installing Windows.
 

XiZiT

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
254
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Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."
 

hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
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Unfortunately, most of the world writes headlines like that about the US, but that's a discussion for the Politics forum ;)
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

 

XiZiT

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
254
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0
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

Sure it does. Get a UK vendor to ship you WindowsXP and you will see its defaulted to European settings ....which is like an entirely diff version for me with the "crazy time zone setting, DD//MM/YY view, and weird spellings"
 

D1gger

Diamond Member
Oct 3, 2004
5,411
2
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Originally posted by: XiZiT
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

Sure it does. Get a UK vendor to ship you WindowsXP and you will see its defaulted to European settings ....which is like an entirely diff version for me with the "crazy time zone setting, DD//MM/YY view, and weird spellings"

It is not a different version of XP, it is simply the same XP with different default settings for region of installation. During installation, you have the option of changing the region. If you had changed that option when prompted, you wouldn't have known the CD came from the UK.
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
9,837
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Originally posted by: XiZiT
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

Sure it does. Get a UK vendor to ship you WindowsXP and you will see its defaulted to European settings ....which is like an entirely diff version for me with the "crazy time zone setting, DD//MM/YY view, and weird spellings"

No, it doesn't.

For example:
UK vendor, hey? Done, I work for one.
Defaults to European settings...? Er, no, it doesn't because Windows XP CANNOT default to European or American settings. It default to American, and that CANNOT be changed without remaking the CD. UK localised copies of Windows XP DO NOT EXIST..

Oh, and if you can't cope with GMT time, a different way of displaying the date, and the correct English spellings of the English language then you're a moron, plain and simple.

The only way that you have a UK localised copy of XP is if you have an illegal copy that has been hacked around to default to UK localisation.

Quit spouting garbage- link to a UK localised copy of Windows XP available to buy online, and I'll eat my desk.*

*Which I won't be doing, as you won't be able to find one.
 

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2001
9,837
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Originally posted by: D1gger
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

Sure it does. Get a UK vendor to ship you WindowsXP and you will see its defaulted to European settings ....which is like an entirely diff version for me with the "crazy time zone setting, DD//MM/YY view, and weird spellings"

It is not a different version of XP, it is simply the same XP with different default settings for region of installation. During installation, you have the option of changing the region. If you had changed that option when prompted, you wouldn't have known the CD came from the UK.

Sorry, but that's wrong as well. English Windows XP defaults to American, no matter where it comes from- there aren't "different default settings". The default is American, and it does not change.

I don't know where you lot are getting your information from, but it's wrong, plain and simple. I'd know, I work for a manufacturer/distributor in the UK and will install anything upwards of ten copies of XP in any given week. Always, every time, it has defaulted to American.
 

Canterwood

Golden Member
May 25, 2003
1,138
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Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."
LOL! Having UK settings freaked you out so you had to format! Thats classic! :D

And the msn.uk headline!
So they dropped the words '....until we've dealt with Iran' and replaced them with '....yet'
No big deal! ;)
 

hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
841
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0
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: D1gger
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Originally posted by: XiZiT
Thanks for the advice, but it freaked me out to the point that I just formatted and installed Windows 2000 until I got myself a the US copy of Windows XP. It was very weird to see the "other side" of the world view. I mean just going to msn. uk, was strange in that, your news is so slandered... i.e. "US says it won't attack N. Korea.... yet."

Which doesn't exist. There is no such thing as a UK or US version of XP.

Sure it does. Get a UK vendor to ship you WindowsXP and you will see its defaulted to European settings ....which is like an entirely diff version for me with the "crazy time zone setting, DD//MM/YY view, and weird spellings"

It is not a different version of XP, it is simply the same XP with different default settings for region of installation. During installation, you have the option of changing the region. If you had changed that option when prompted, you wouldn't have known the CD came from the UK.

Sorry, but that's wrong as well. English Windows XP defaults to American, no matter where it comes from- there aren't "different default settings". The default is American, and it does not change.

I don't know where you lot are getting your information from, but it's wrong, plain and simple. I'd know, I work for a manufacturer/distributor in the UK and will install anything upwards of ten copies of XP in any given week. Always, every time, it has defaulted to American.

Dopefind is right everyone (please see my previous post which talks about OEM's changing it WHILE installing windows).
I'm an OEM in Australia, and all our copies of Windows XP come by default in US English with the US regional settings and keyboard layouts (although the Australian English keyboard layout uses the US one anyway). When I install XP on a customer's computer, I change the regional settings, languages and default keyboard layouts in setup. Now because of the regional settings, the dates display differently, and the keyboard layout is different (in the case of the UK that is), but the spelling stays the same. It's only on regionalised versions of MSN (which IE loads once it checks your regional settings) where words are spelt differently. So to get the normal msn.com stuff, just change your regional settings.
Now after talking about spelling, I'm sure many people here noticed that my spelling isn't american :p
 

pakigang

Member
Oct 31, 2004
51
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0
You can cutomize your winxp installation (most of the winxp copies from branded pc maker do) using deploy wizard included in the cd or edit "winnt.sif". There is also a way to make your customize cd bootable. I made one which installs mediaplayer 10, aspi, and some win update during final installation.
 

imported_Yooshaw

Junior Member
Jul 5, 2004
20
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0
I don't think that it's a regional setting issue at all. Here's my take:

I'm stationed in Germany, and had similar problems getting the German version of Webpages (Google is one). My reginonal settings are set for US.

I thinks it's a function of your ISP and the webpage you visit. Google recognizes my ISP as German, and redirects me to the German Google page. From that page, there is a link for "Google in English", which is the normal American page. After I click that, I have no more problems. I had a similar experience with Expedia.

My opinion
 

hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
841
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Yooshaw, are you using the German version of XP? That may explain that problem. BTW, when I lived in Thailand, I set everything to Australia, and for MSN it came out with ninemsn.com.au. For google it gave me google.com.au instead of google.co.th. It is the regional settings. I was using the english version of XP.
I can do the same thing here in Australia. If I want the US version of a site by default (or any other country), I change my regional settings.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,579
10,215
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Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Defaults to European settings...? Er, no, it doesn't because Windows XP CANNOT default to European or American settings. It default to American, and that CANNOT be changed without remaking the CD. UK localised copies of Windows XP DO NOT EXIST..

Oh, and if you can't cope with GMT time, a different way of displaying the date, and the correct English spellings of the English language then you're a moron, plain and simple.

The only way that you have a UK localised copy of XP is if you have an illegal copy that has been hacked around to default to UK localisation.

Quit spouting garbage- link to a UK localised copy of Windows XP available to buy online, and I'll eat my desk.*

*Which I won't be doing, as you won't be able to find one.
European version of XP

Hope your desk is made of Chocolate or Gingerbread. :)

PS. I assume that the default install locality settings are controlled by the SETUP.INF or whatever the main root setup file is. Considering how many different batches of CDs that MS presses, I'm truely honestly surprised that they don't have one specifically for UK-default settings for English-speaking countries. I would think that would please their customers, whereas having to manually choose UK from a US-default copy, could irk some of their UK customers.
(Yes, I know that the EU version of XP that I link to above is actually a very new thing. You don't really have to eat your desk.)

Edit: I take that back. I was able to find a seperate "UK" version of Windows, as compared to the "US" version - look here. Granted, when you click on "English (UK)", the only product listed for sale is W2K Pro (UK edition), but it would highly surprise me that MS, who is generally so accomodating for local-language versions, would create a UK-specific version of W2K, and then kill it off when XP was released. (While at the same time, maintaining seperate versions for, say, Sri Lanka.) The price that it is listed for, makes it look like it is indeed a legit version.

So how about you just eat one leg off of your desk then?