Korean Language

OK, there's no short answer to this. So it's a long one or nothing. Please just ignore unless you have this particular problem.

It's not surprising people get confused. Basically we are talking about two different things here.

1) The MS Global IME and Office XP IME tools, downloadable from the links given in the pinned thread. These were designed for Win98, WinME and WinNT. They add the ability to input E Asian languages only to IE and to MS Office apps. You can install them in later systems if you like but you won't get input support except in those specific apps. You download them from the Net and don't need the Windows CD to install them. So that's one of the things that people saying "you don't need the CD" are referring to.

2) The built in East Asian language support found in Win2K onwards (i,e in XP and Vista as well) This allows input into any applications whatever, which is obviously a lot better (plus the IME's have more features and are more customizable). To activate this support, your copy of Windows needs to have access to the supporting files. And this is why you will read contradictory reports here and other places about whether you need the CD, because how your copy of Windows gets that access depends on how it was originally installed (or how it was re-installed if that's what's happened).

There are three possibilities as far as that built-in support is concerned.
a) at original install time, the "East Asian Language support" option was checked. This will have caused all the necessary files to be copied on to the computer from the install CD, even if, later in the install, no Korean input was activated. So when you later follow the steps outlined in the pinned thread and request, say, Korean input, you get what you ask for without needing to supply the CD.
b) at install or re-install time, the "East Asian Language support" option was unchecked, as it is by default except on Windows specifically packaged for East Asian markets. That means the necessary files were left on the CD and not copied onto the computer. So in this case, when you later try to activate Korean input support, you get the demand to insert the CD. And unless you can satisfy that demand by supplying the CD, you won't get the support (unless you settle for the much more limited features offered by 1) above).
c) the install (and generally here we're talking about bulk installs by major manufacturers such as Dell) copied the whole of the install CD files onto a part of the hard disk (sometimes a hidden one). The effect of this is that even if East Asian support wasn't requested in the original install, if you ask to add it later, Windows finds the CD image on its own hard disk and does the necessary without asking you for the CD.

So the people who swear you don't need the CD to install full East Asian input support on XP have experienced either case a) or case c). Those who get the demand to insert the CD have hit case b) -- or a nasty variant of case c) where a helpful buddy or a careless support person has reinstalled Windows for you and zapped the manufacturer-installed CD image from the hard disk in the process).

So what can you do in case b) if you don't have the CD? The only thing you *can* do is get hold of an install CD for about five minutes. If you have XP Home, then either an XP home or an XP Pro CD will do for this purpose (i.e. supplying the missing support files) Windows doesn't check the version, let alone the serial number for this particular operation. Since you aren't installing Windows from the "borrowed" CD, you aren't doing anything illegal. You are simply fetching from that CD files that ought to have been on your hard disk anyway if Windows had been (re-)installed properly. If your machine is a laptop and you have any contacts in the computer support section of a school or college (or are on friendly terms with a local computer dealer) I suggest you take your machine along to them, take it through to the point where it asks for a CD, then ask them to let you put their XP install CD into your drive for a few moments. They can stand watching to make sure you don't do anything else with it if they like. If you can't carry your machine around, you are going to have to find a way of persuading a co-operative CD owner to come visit you...

Note, though, that this trick won't work with a brand-specific "recovery" CD of the kind that often ship with machines nowadays. Those CDs do contain the Windows install files, but generally in an encrypted form that can only be read on a machine of the exact type for which it was supplied. It has to be a normal XP install CD.

soompi forums: Korean Language - soompi forums

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