No offense, but that sounds like bull. Do you actually believe that? Can you prove that statement?

I can also say that one of the systems on which this problem occurs is a completely legit WinXP.

Go to a torrent site that has pirated copies of Windows. You will see many of the creators crowing about how they managed to shrink Windows to 100MB or 200MB or so by deleting all "unnecessary" foreign language files.

I believe it because I have very serious computer credentials and know what I'm talking about. :)

I do know a thing or two about computers myself, and I don't download "rips" or other versions where things are removed.

I don't have a single computer credential, but I do know what I download, and as I said it's not likely to be even remotely related anyways, since I get the exact same issue on my laptop, which is running a perfectly legit XP.

And we're getting a little far afield here..

Yea I see those on my language bar too. I actually don't know hot keys, haha so I just click what ever one I need.

I had a little breakthrough here.

Apparently there are hotkeys for switching modes after all, though. Ctrl+CAPS for hiragana, Alt+CAPS for katakana. This is awesome.

That shift+typing thing didn't work, though. Just enters alpha, not katakana.

Anyways, found the keys here.

Hi
I'm new to Japanese and am starting to learn it a bit. I have a problem. I don't have genuine win XP so if I want to install the Japanese language pack it can't be done becouse I don't have the CD. Is there a site where I can download the pack? I tried on the Microsoft page but could find only the Office Japanese pack. Now the hiragana, katakana and kanji are displaying properly on pages I visit, but I still can't write it. Help please with some links!
Arigato gozaimasu

Immediately, I rather doubt it. If it asks for a CD, you will most likely need a CD. However, I can't recall having to use a CD when I installed it.

That's probably coz you had the lannguage pack already installed on your computer, you just had to run it. It asks you actually to insert the Win XP CD or to load it from where you have it stored to your computer. So i'm sure I can download it from somewhere, but just can't find the page...