It seem that there's no way to write frenchcharacters(like , or ) with the inking feature. It will not recognize them. Is there a way to them back?

For your problem, please understand that there is no French version Windows 7 Beta (Arabic, English, German, Hindi and Japanese) released at the moment, even no French language package available; so the French handwriting recognition does not work on the computer. You should wait for another period of time until the retail version is published. Thanks for your understanding!

Will Microsoft increase the number of languages supported with 7? For example with Vista I need a 3rd party application to have handwriting recognition in Portuguese.Asus M530w WM6 Smartphone

I am unsure about French but I believe that handwriting recognition should be available in the beta. There are 14 new languages. The strange thing is that handwriting recognition was available for Swedish (one of the 14 new) in the M3 build, which was English (not Swedish MUI), so I'm sure you should be able to use your native language for handwriting, even if you have English as default language, just as you are able to use a non-English keyboard with an English install.See my other post:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/745e85c3-9264-40d1-b1d4-3c709ddb13ff

Andy Song said: For your problem, please understand that there is no French version Windows 7 Beta (Arabic, English, German, Hindi and Japanese) released at the moment, even no French language package available; so the French handwriting recognition does not work on the computer. You should wait for another period of time until the retail version is published. Thanks for your understanding! While I understand what Andy is saying, and slowly starting to accept this fact, I have trouble understanding how local language handwriting is beta tested, if this is the only beta. I guess that we are not allowed to test local language handwriting recognition, as this is carried out by non-public beta testers. I am so disappointed, as I had invested time, resources and energy to participate in the beta with the sole purpose of testing handwriting on my only laptop, which happens to be a Tablet PC, and wiping a perfectly good machine used in daily work. I did this since I knew the functionality was there in the M3 release. Why did it have to be excluded when there is evidentally no dependency on MUIs, so local language versions should not be needed. I just need an answer to that simple question: "WHY?"

Sorry for not giving up, but I still can't get my head around this one. If local language handwriting will only be available with the local language versions of Win7 (Swedish in my case), then will I not be able to use it for English hanwriting recognition? If 'yes', why? Why only local language and English? Why not Swedish, English and let's say German? I will be able to use a German keyboard with a Swedish language version of Windows, right? All this goes to say that there is something fishy going on here. M3demonstrated that it was possible so it should be there in the beta as well,but perhaps someone screwed up?I believe thatall language versions of Windows should support all languages, even if through some download. To me it doesn't matter if the actual OS (menus, messages, buttons, help, etc.)is in Swedish or English, as long as I can use handwriting in both languages, and preferrably more. Will Swedish students not be able to use a Swedish version of Windows for their Spanish classes? Will they have to use a Spanish version of Windows to be able to access Spanish handwriting recognition? I find that hard to believe. Although built on more advanced technology, there is no real difference between handwriting and typing on a keyboard, when it comes to input. Com'n, a proper answer please!!

I belive this workaround will help you lot ;) http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/01/29/enable-spanish-recognition-in-windows-7-beta/This is for spanish, but I think that by grabbing the equivalent files from a pre beta you can work out a fix for your own languages... Asus M530w WM6 Smartphone

THANKS!!I believe this may very well be a workable workaround. It looks very promising. Just a little snag though; I don't have a version of the pre-beta installed, and am not looking forward at wiping my Win7 install and replace with the pre-beta just to get to those files (and then re-install Win7 again). Is there anyone with the pre-build installed that would be so kind as to extract the respective files for Swedish (or why not all the available languages?) I would be very happy if someone had the opportunity of doing so, but I know it's asking a lot...BTW, the link did not work, but I found the information anyway, at this link:http://www.todoumpc.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8366&PN=1THANKS AGAIN!! (yes, shouting in joy)Still this hints that you will only get handwriting in you local language in the RTM. It's a shame, really, and I just wish MS would reconsider this strategy. As I said in an the earlier post; what if I want to do some handwriting in Spanish? Am I excluded beacause I am not living in Spain? What about Hispanic people in the US? I am sure someone will get feedback on that...

I'll see if I can grab them tomorrow... I have a couple of machines at work I can wipe.EDIT: After looking into thesolution our spanish friends used we might have a problem with the reg entry. Can you make sense of it? I'll try to contact the original poster.To Mods: I might be entering a grayish area here, so just ping me if you don't want us posting this method/files here. Asus M530w WM6 Smartphone

OK, this is what I did: I installed Virtual PC SP1 on one of the Win7 machines (have a couple actually), then I installed the Win7 M3 build on that. From that install I was able to extract the appropriate files.The registry is rather simple. It says in plain text that it is the reg entry for your language. It'sjust one entry with subentries. The Swedish one only had one subentry, whileit seems the Spanish one had two. No idea why, though. I think you will be able to find the reg key pretty easily.The files should also be easy to find. The Spanish ones are called "hwrESPlm.dat" and "hwrESPsh.dat" (I have capitalized the language specific part of the names for clarity), with ESP being "Espaol". The French files have the same name but with "FRA" and the Swedish are labeled "SVE" (if I recall correctly, I'm not at my home PC now). Anyway, just look for files with your language abbreviation, most likely as you would abbreviate it in you local language. For non-western languages, I am not sure how they are abbreviated.I guess you would be able to extract all available languages this way. Could be a useful resource in the future,if you need access to handwriting regocnition that doesn't come with your install. And it seems as if you will get English and your local language in you local language version of Windows. That's a drag, but I guess there is some strategy behind it. I am looking forward to being able to do handwriting in other languages from now on. I will start with Spanish and German, perhaps I could pick up some of that stuff I learnt in school all those years ago.

I got stuck, seems like the build I installed didn't have the files. Did you find PT (Portugal, not brazilian portuguese) files in there? Maybe a list of what's in there would be useful.Trying out the inking with ENG, and after reading the article in Engineering Windows 7 I can understand why Vista didn't have inking support for many languages. It's still a shame though.Here's the article, makes for an interesting read: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/13/advances-in-typography-and-text-rendering-in-windows-7.aspxAsus M530w WM6 Smartphone

OK, this is what I did: I installed Virtual PC SP1 on one of the Win7 machines (have a couple actually), then I installed the Win7 M3 build on that. From that install I was able to extract the appropriate files. The registry is rather simple. It says in plain text that it is the reg entry for your language. It'sjust one entry with subentries. The Swedish one only had one subentry, whileit seems the Spanish one had two. No idea why, though. I think you will be able to find the reg key pretty easily. The files should also be easy to find. The Spanish ones are called "hwrESPlm.dat " and "hwrESPsh.dat " (I have capitalized the language specific part of the names for clarity), with ESP being "Espaol". The French files have the same name but with "FRA" and the Swedish are labeled "SVE" (if I recall correctly, I'm not at my home PC now). Anyway, just look for files with your language abbreviation, most likely as you would abbreviate it in you local language. For non-western languages, I am not sure how they are abbreviated. I guess you would be able to extract all available languages this way. Could be a useful resource in the future,if you need access to handwriting regocnition that doesn't come with your install. And it seems as if you will get English and your local language in you local language version of Windows. That's a drag, but I guess there is some strategy behind it. I am looking forward to being able to do handwriting in other languages from now on. I will start with Spanish and German, perhaps I could pick up some of that stuff I learnt in school all those years ago. Hi, do you have the possibility to poste the French ink Files ? Thank you in advance

Hmm, I think I need to set up a VirtualPC again, since I have formatted the drive on that computer and installed the Win7 RC. I can't promise anything, but if I do find the time I will extract German, Portuguese (if it's there)and French. Any others?