Win 7 boots in wrong language

[DISPENSER4HIRE_32]

My new ASUS laptop boots in what I believe is Arabic. It is also the 1st time to use win 7. It came with a recovery disc, but I cannot read the screen prompts, and nothing is in the same place as XP. I really don't want to have to return the laptop for a software problem. Help!

 

[Herr_Koos]

Oops.. You cannot actually change the language of Windows (unless it's Ultimate or Enterprise + language packs). Sounds to me like someone installed the Arabic version on your machine. Are you sure you read the fine-print before you bought it? I suggest you take it back.

 

[boonality]

Wow, did you get this thing off Ebay or something?

 

[sminlal]

If it's a multilanguage version then there should be an icon in the upper-left corner of the logon screen that lets you change the language. If there isn't one that probably means only 1 language is installed and you're out of luck.

EDIT: Sorry - the icon I was thinking of is in the lower-left corner and it's the accessibility icon, not the language icon. But there should be a language icon visible somewhere if it is a multilingual version.

 

[number13]

If you have Ultimate or Pro, go to the Control Panel and the Region and Language, there you can select the default language

 

[DISPENSER4HIRE_32]

Thanks for the replies. I apparently selected Arabic (I guess???) when I set up the computer. I went into bios, set it to boot from the cd drive 1st, and used the restore disk, and VERY CAREFULLY chose English.

 

[sminlal]

Just to be clear, did you actually re-install Windows from scratch, or were you able to use the CD to change the default language for the already-installed copy of Windows?