Nordic characters display Windows Mobile 5/6

[Erik]

I need:
A device for use in China and Europe, preferably with meny in Chinese, English, and Norwegian/Danish. And I should like to install Pleco. In China I would use the device with Chinese meny, and in Europe I would use the Nordic menyu. In both locales I need to be able to input and display Chinese and English.

My simple Symbian-based Sony-Ericsson W700C, bought in China is able to do most of this; i can input and display English, Norwegian and Chinese. I can have menus in Chinese and English, but not in Norwegian (this is no big deal, as long as I can input and display the Norwegian characters æ.ø,å.

I thought of a WM device bought in Norway, and then add c-star or some other chinese input. I have tried this, but it seemed to be buggy, and not too elegant. Another way to go would be to buy a Chinese WM device, and then add Norwegian input. Is this possible?

It seems very strange that Microsoft has not thought of such basic things when designing a mobile phone operating system - after all the purpose of a mobile phone is mobility, with the ability to manipulate locale, languages, menus, characters, etc. for the multi-lingual road warrior?

 

[ldolse]

This isn't so much Microsoft's fault as it is the phone vendors and carriers fault, as they produce the ROMs for their devices, not Microsoft. Windows Mobile is fully capable of doing everything you ask without requiring CE-Star to muck everything up, but no one is producing a ROM that includes those capabilities as a factory default. However tweaking the OS is relatively easy, see below.

There are numerous threads on this topic, try searching the forum for more details, but here are some links:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1266
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1003&start=47

The first thing I do every time re-set my phone is go through the steps described in those threads. No one has asked for more detail on how to edit the registry, but if you need help let me know.

Your best bet is to go with the Norwegian source - that way you get all the menus in local language as well as the right input. This can't be changed on the fly like Symbian, it's hardcoded.