If you buy at Worton in Spain they will change the language to English for you for 40€.

Buy any computer in any language & use one of these discs to change it to Englaish language. Once you've done that, charge anybody else that asks €80 to change their computer into English. Afterall that's all the majority of so called pc engineers do.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WINDOWS-RESTOR...item3a656a90df

What about the keyboard?

The Spanish keyboard is quite different to UK keyboard. Not just the letter ñ but a lot of the special characters are in a different place.

Look at the keyboard before you buy. Are you happy with how you have to type in @ or / or : and ;?

Certainly could, I only suggested the UK suppliers after he said "as a last resort", and rather wait for family to bring it out, the suppliers would have it there in a few days.

So have you actually used it to change from Spanish to English?

There is nothing in their advert that suggests it can change the language.

There are only two ways that I am aware of to change the language.

The first is to reinstall Windows from an English language version.

The second is to download a multi language interface pack, free, from Microsoft. This will allow you to change the language - in fact you can have multiple language versions running at the same time - useful for multi lingual families.

I have both English and Spanish running on my PC. Unfortunately it only works if you have the Ultimate version of Vista or W7.

However there is a free program available (it's the one JDR referred to) which tweaks the ordinary versions of Windows to allow them to install the language packs.

You will find it at http://www.froggie.sk/

I haven't used it but many have. It's not a monster program - just a very clever registry hack.

If you use the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft then the language is easily changed and of course it's free.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

This does not resolve any problems with the keyboard.

I asked a very similar question before Xmas.... this:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=694040
is the link (I hope!)
Not saying you'll get any more of a definitive answer, but it might help...

I suggested this in post 4. We have a PC for guests and have it set up so that a person can log on in one of several languages. One day Windows will catch up with this idea.
Another advantage is hardly any viruses/malware.

Yep that is the one Fred, I used it and it changed everything to English, although windows updates would not load up auto.
It`s more fun in Spanish though, so changed it back.

If you want to stop your guests using your PC it can be fun to change it to Arabic

Or you can buy one in Gibralta which'll be UK keyboard. Depending where you are may be an option.

There is a company called Pixmania (European wide web sites) with shops in Madrid and Barcelona, that sells UK laptops

Here's a link to the page about their UK laptops They also do Mac's in English. I can recommend them as I got my Sony VAIO there Oh and they are quite cheap :-)

http://www.pixmania.com/es/es/19343/...criteresn.html

They are owned by Dixons - hardly a good recommendation!

They have a very bad reputation for customer service. I would hate to have to use them for any warranty support.

I bought my English keyboard from Amazon UK, I couldn't get along with the Spanish one when touch typing!

Don`t make a lot of difference to two finger typists.