Newish laptop

[andym]

So I finally got the keys to my flat on Friday, and the place had been cleaned out quite thoroughly... apart from the veranda which contained quite a lot of crap. In one of the boxes was a Vaio VPCEE2M1E, which as I guessed would probably have a smashed screen.

After plugging it in to the TV the first thing that came up was a rather large warning message about the laptop being used for illegal activity and pay £100 to PCeU blah blah blah.... I removed the drive and connected it to my computer, about 45 minutes later all the virus' were removed.

Now I have 1 slight problem left that hopefully someone knows how to sort.... everything is in Chinese (previous owners obviously shit themselves and threw (literally) the laptop away), so is there a way to change it back to Engerish without the Windows disk? I don't know if there is a recovery partition as it only shows up on the TV (and monitor) after it actually gets to the windows log on screen

Hopefully some of that might make sense

TL;DR:
Found Chinese laptop, want to change back to English, is it possible without Windows CD?

[Wabby]

That would depend on if the English language pack was installed initially, or if the laptop was factory Chinese.

You shouldn't need the disk for the language - You should be able to download it from the inter webs directly from M$ - However - you would probably first need to learn Chinese to navigate the current install, or know the images / control flow of the forms in order to select items from the correct place.

https://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/products/features/language-packs
____________________
What restriction?

[J.M.]

I'd prefer a clean install anyway. You have no idea what's on there that you haven't yet discovered.

I'd be tempted to whack a Linux distro on there, or possibly torrent a copy of windows. You can install windows from a USB, so you don't need to faff around with CDs.
____________________
2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

[Rogerborg]

Agreed, unless you specifically need Windows, I'd Mint that sucker.
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike