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I'm looking at buying a Japanese laptop off of a japanese website and it of course runs on a japanese OS. I was wondering if the conversion from a japanese OS to an English one would be too complicated or expensive and if it is even possible. Or if I could simply use it with the japanese OS and get used to the slightly differnt keyboard and if anything else would really matter. Your help is very much appreciated!

Please help me out, I am so lost...

If Mac or linux, it's possible.
Windows: you might need another 3rd party soft.
Better get used to the Japanese keyboard.

A couple of possibilities:
1. If it runs Vista then install the language pack for English and run it in English.
2. You can install another English OS either alongside the Japanese OS and have a choice at boot up or, get rid of the Japanese OS and install an English OS. However, if you do that be very careful as you will lose all the PC specific drivers and many things, special functions peculiar to that PC, may not work correctly.

You'll get used to the keyboard.

If you know how to install windows, then you can install it just the same as on a computer that is English. But if you have never installed windows, you will probably have some troubles. And as Harry said, you may have troubles finding some drivers you need.

Thanks guys, this helps, but I still have another question, sorry. If I just use the japanese OS and I go into a word document will the options at the top, such as new page, or open document, copy, paste etc. be in japanese? Is so is there a way I can just manually change it? Thanks again.

The OS and the software are separate. I have an English version of Office installed on a laptop running on a Japanese version of Windows, and that's no problem.

Is the laptop you're looking at relatively new? Like Harry_Gatto warned you about, and hakuman confirmed, drivers can be a problem. I had that with my laptop and in the end I never bothered to install an English OS, though I gather that after a couple of months the English drivers would have been available from the Panasonic website (brand of my laptop). So, if the one you're looking at isn't a brand new type, they might have drivers on their website.

yes, it is brand new, but my problem is whether i could just find my way around the computer in it's original japanese way, without any changes. Like will the choice tabs at the top of a word document such as "open new" or "Copy" and "paste" will always be in japanese...

They won't be in Japanese, if you install an English version of Office. Standard Wordpad will be in Japanese, but once you install Microsoft Office that will be overridden when opening Word documents. So there really is no worry there.

Or is it Windows 7 and is everything integrated there somehow, Office already included in the OS (I'd doubt that, but I have no idea about windows 7) .... ?

Ah! Great! Where do I find an English vresion of office? Is it hard to install?
Thank you greatly for your help!

Depends where you are but, many of the big computer stores stock English software.
Is it easy to install? Yes; just put the CD in the drive and follow the instructions.
If you do all of this then log onto MS and check for updates.

Thank you all very much!