Installing and Using Amharic Software in Windows 7

Microsoft recently released Windows 7, which included Amharic and many other African languages. I did cover that story in my post, entitled, “Microsoft to Release Windows 7 in Amharic, Ethiopian National Language, and Nine Other African Languages“, which you can read by clicking here.

I have not upgraded to Windows 7 yet, so I don’t have a personal experience to write my own review on how the system works and how good or bad it is.

Because many people have shown a great deal of interest in the Amharic system, I did a little bit of research and have found the following information:

1: From David Kirba’s blog (David is an Indian who has been living in Ethiopian for many years), and

2: From Nazret.com (Ethiopian news portal site, that reports a well balanced coverage of Ethiopian news)

David Kirba:

How to use Amharic in Windows 7 without any extra software

I recently got a new laptop that came preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. Though I knew Amharic was available on the system, it did take a little digging to enable it. I’m sharing the steps involved and I hope you find it useful.

This is for Windows 7, but I think similar steps are available in Windows Vista. Windows XP doesn’t come with Amharic fonts or input methods pre-installed.

These steps will enable Amharic input on Windows 7. They don’t describe how to change the default language of the menu to Amharic.

Click here to read more about this article at David Kirba’s blog

Nazret.com:

A Guide to install Amharic Windows Vista LIP by nazret.com

If you like your Windows Vista in Amharic (the official working language of Ethiopia) then you can download the latest Windows Vista Language Interface Pack (LIP) now and we have got the instructions as well.

nazret is pleased to announce that we have successfully tested the recent release of Amharic Language Interface Pack by Microsoft for Windows Vista. As you may have heard by now, Microsoft along with Addis Ababa University have developed the language interface for Ethiopia’s official language and is now available for install.

We have created a step-by-step guide on how to install the pack and configure your Windows Vista to display menu and commands in Amharic. The language pack is available for Windows 7, but we don’t have the download location and will let you know as soon as we know about it.

In less than 30 minutes, you can install the LIP and have your PC speak with you in Amharic 😉 which has its own script.

Here is how to get started. Get the language pack from microsoft.

And follow our easy to follow -we hope installation guide (PDF)

ምልከታ

የWindows Vista የቋንቋ ኢንተርፌስ ጥቅል (Language Interface Pack) በሰፊው …

Click here to continue reading about this article at Nazret.com

I hope that these two posts will give you a good guide to using Amharic on your computer.

My next blog entry will be on Thursday March 25, 2010.
Mullkam Samint!