(and Arabic and Persian and any other right-to-left language)

Have been doing this in my current job and also when I was at the UK branch of NICE Systems, an Israel based VOIP telecoms recording software company, mainly as one of the proprietary web based databases had to have the Hebrew support to operate.

These tips will come in handy if you want to set up a computer to Hebrew speaking staff or for someone learning languages at home.

To start with you will need your XP CD handy as Windows will need to fetch some files off it, if you have a computer like a Sony Viao/E machines/Packard Bell etc PC which don’t provide you with CDs to restore your operating system you will need to check your C: drive for a folder called i386.

Go to Control panel and Region and Language Options.   Tick the box that says “install files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai)”

Click Apply and ok.   Windows will now ask you for your Windows CD, if you don’t have it, choose a path where your i386 folder is, ie: C:\i386.   Once done, you can go back to the “languages” tab and click Details and then choose Hebrew.

You can test now this by going to www.google.co.il

If you live in Israel don’t forget to set your time zone to Jerusalem GMT+2 hours.   To do this double click the clock in the bottom right hand corner and then click on time zones.

Don’t forget if you are or your users have two or more languages and you don’t want to use the little blue square language control icon on the taskbar, you can use Alt + Caps lock to switch keyboard layouts.  Some of my users need Russian as well as about 10-15% of Israelis originate from the ex-Soviet Union countries.

If you need a Hebrew keyboard, take a look on ebay, you can get sticker sets very cheap to give you the necessary symbols to type in Hebrew.