> Windows rules here and Microsoft makes a special version of windows for the japanese market. Maybe it's gotten better with windows vista or 7, I really don't know.
I don't know about XP, but with 7 (Ultimate, at least) there definitely isn't a "special version of Windows for the Japanese market". Japanese Windows is the same old Windows with a Japanese localization pack installed and enabled. You can go into the settings and change it. This is why when you install Windows 7 Ultimate, you get a ton of optional updates that are a bunch of language packs (there are ~25-30).
I haven't tried installing very many things, but from the instructions I've read, there appear to be many that won't work properly unless the locale is set to Japanese when installing and running the software.
I don't know about XP, but with 7 (Ultimate, at least) there definitely isn't a "special version of Windows for the Japanese market". Japanese Windows is the same old Windows with a Japanese localization pack installed and enabled. You can go into the settings and change it. This is why when you install Windows 7 Ultimate, you get a ton of optional updates that are a bunch of language packs (there are ~25-30).