Install Additional Language Packs in Windows Vista Home or Home Premium

Vistalizator is a useful tool for people like me to get additional language packs for Windows Vista Home, or Windows Vista Home Premium. I puchased a new laptop here in France with Windows Vista Premium installed, everything is good except i got a French windows vista. Microsoft won’t provide Multilingual User Interface (MUI) for Home and Home Premium versions, instead they provide language interface packs (LIP) which is of no use for me.

Vistalizator is a freeware that allows you to install these multilingual user interface in Windows Vista Home or Windows Vista Home Premium. Using this tool is easy and with in few minutes you will get your language of choice installed on your computer. It uses official Vista language packs, so you will get all the Microsoft goodness.

To get started download Vistalizator, it is a standalone app, just unzip it and run it. You have to download a MUI pack of your choice before going ahead, these MUIs vary in size depending on the language of your choice. After downloading the MUI open vistalizator and click Add Language. It will take few minutes to finish this step, then click Install to install the language of your choice and accept the language change. Now restart the system, that’s it you have a new language now in your windows vista. You can use vistalizator to install more languages and change between them.

Features

• Change Vista display language in less than 5 minutes!
• Uses official Microsoft Vista language packs
• You can install all 35 languages and switch between them easily
• Works in 32-bit and 64-bit Vista
• Compatible with Vista Service Pack 1
• User Account Control (UAC) compliant – prompts for administrative privileges
• Safe use – no file is overwritten/changed during language installation
  (except for language upgrade after installing Vista SP1)
• Vista Speech Recognition works with all supported languages:
  Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish
  (go to Control Panel -> Ease of Access -> Speech Recognition Options)

Issues
Windows update may not work for you after installing a new language, the workaround for this is to run vistalizator and revert to the original vista language, then run windows update and then revert back to your language choice. This may be a little bit annoying, since windows update is usually once it shouldn’t be a problem.

I used this app to install English on my French Windows Vista system and it worked flawlessly.