Setting up JP POL along with NA POL

[Zekryn]

There was a really good page somewhere, but I can't find it..

I have a Japanese set of Disc, and a NA set of disc.. I have everything for the NA set installed, and just the Japanese POL installed. I know you can fix your regristy somehow so you can run either or without having to update every time you switch.

Can someone please help or give me that link?

[Falquan]

Well, here's the one I wrote a while back. I originally posted it here, then to my Linkshell's site, Arcanum and also to a budding information place, /panic. This is all out of my own experience installing it.

So, with no further ado:

EDIT: All forward slashes are meant to be backslashes. However due to PHP and MySQL escape characters, backslashes are not shown right.

Well, I finally broke down and bought the import copy of FFXI. I personally got it because I wanted a way to practice my Japanese in a setting that's a little more demanding than a college course. Hopefully I won't irritate the other players, and hopefully SE won't ban me for wanting to attempt to bridge the communication barrier. I'm still annoyed there's no way to even use just either Hiragana or Katakana in the NA version. However, I assume that was out of compassion for the Japanese players, so they didn't have a bunch of English speakers shouting with the "pretty letters".

Of course, I had a little trouble installing it. I'm decent in Japanese (my Kanji is lacking), but by no means an expert. Anyway, I wanted to give a small guide to anyone who would like to try the import version.

Installing the IME in Windows: (I only have XP running, and the 2000 version is slightly different. If someone has instructions for that, it would be appreciated!)

• Open your Control Panel and switch it to Classic View.
• Open Regional and Language Options.
• Switch to the Languages tab and check "Install files for East Asian languages". (You will need your Windows XP CD)
• Click OK and let it restart your computer.
• Go back to the same Control Panel tab and this time click "Details".
• On the "Settings" tab, click "Add...".
• Change the Input language and "Keyboard layout/IME" to Japanese.
• Click OK, and let it install, and restart your computer if necessary.
• Go back into the same Control Panel, but this time go to the "Advanced" tab.
• Change "Language for non-Unicode programs" to Japanese. If you don't do this, the FFXI install program will not run correctly, and also causes FFXI itself to display "?" instead of the Japanese characters. Click OK, and let it restart your computer.
• It may be necessary to change your Default input language (seen in the "Details" button to Japanese in order for FFXI to install also)

Keep in mind that there will be many changes to your system when you change non-Unicode default to Japanese. For example, on my computer, the backslash is now displayed as a yen symbol. It doesn't hurt anything, but does look funny. Also, any older applications may display gibberish text. If anything runs weird, switch the non-Unicode default back to English. However, you must change it to Japanese for use in FFXI.

Installing FFXI:

• The next step is to uninstall the NA version of FFXI and PlayOnline. Remember to save your macro files (found in the "C:/Program Files/PlayOnline/SquareEnix/FINAL FANTASY XI/USER/xxxxxx" folder, where xxxxxx is a seemingly random string of letters and numbers corresponding to each of your characters) and remember that PlayOnline data such as email will be lost when you uninstall. You must uninstall the NA version first--if you do not, PlayOnline does not work right, and the game will crash when you try to switch input methods.
• Simply run the uninstall program for FFXI, all expansion packs, and Playonline.
• Start regedit.exe. Find the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/PlayOnlineUS". Delete that entire key.
• Now, make sure the Uninstaller removed all FFXI files from C:/Program Files. If any still exist, delete them.
• Install the FFXI Import first. I leave it to you to stumble through all the menus. I'd recommend installing the Japanese version in the default location.
• You may or may not have to update all the files before installing the NA version. However, if you're taking this much time to do this, you might as well do it now.
• Change the name of all the shortcuts so that they are not overwritten by the NA version.
• Install the NA version to a SEPERATE LOCATION. I used "C:/Program Files/PlayOnlineNA". The expansion packs will automatically install themselves to the correct, changed location.

Again, I leave you to set up your accounts yourself. I'm posting this guide for those of us who want to actually try to talk to the Japanese, not just run around making silly smiley-faces and shouting jibberish.

Before you're in-game, make sure to use the Language Bar to switch your input method to Japanese. You can't change it once you're inside the game. To switch input methods once in the game, use the key combination Alt+` (the tilde key). That should change the indicator on the right side to a hiragana "a", and you'll be able to use it just as you would the IME in Windows XP.

[Edited on 2/1/2005 by Falquan]

[Kosy]

In my experience, I never needed to install JP POL first. I installed it after I had already installed the NA POL. It's worked great and I haven't had any issues. There's some registry changes to be made, but I have a choice to either boot in NA or JP client at whim, without having to do "this or that."

[Jaewon]

<Help me out!> Whenever I try installing both versions (either NA first, then JP, or the other way around), the one that was on first gets messed up: the main FFXI screen plays the original music, pre-patch, then double-prompts for character/Content ID login, which it also used to before the big update last fall, and fails searches, cuts off text lines, etc. I followed Falquan's advice and uninstalled completely and re-installed the second in a different directory, but it seems to overwrite regardless.

My procedure: install JP version, update, install NA version in /PlayOnline2 folder. I'd get those weird changes when I run the JP version afterwards. Note that I didn't update NA install. Weirder still, if I then uninstall the NA version, my JP version is back, intact. (And phew, too! That update is several hours, at least.)

[KamuroIshigami]

Tried and true, do this every day.

First you MUST install the JP version first, when asked to install it to which directory, make sure you change the directory and append -JP to the directory. For example: C:/Program Files/PlayOnline/ would become C:/Program Files/PlayOnline-JP/

The same applies to installing Final Fantasy XI, Japanese edition.

Then you MUST patch PlayOnline and FFXI completely. Go to the start menu and rename your PlayOnline program group to PlayOnline-JP

Then, you can install the English version and append -EN to the directory so C:/Program Files/PlayOnline/ would become C:/Program Files/PlayOnline-EN/

The same applies to installing Final Fantasy XI, English version.

Then you MUST patch PlayOnline and FFXI completely (again) for the English version. Then go to your start menu and rename the program group to PlayOnline-EN.

It is important to rename the program group so any changes in the JP version affecting the program group will not apply to the EN version because both the EN and JP version will update the "PlayOnline" program group without regard to language, and you want to retain the shortcuts seperately.

There is absolutely no need to do any registry changes. The registry keys for each version is on a seperate branch anyways, so doing so is extra unnecessary work.