Japanese input with Azerty in Windows 8.1

From Windows Vista on, enabling Japanese input became much simpler compared to Windows XP where you were required to install the Eastern Asian Languages package to display Japanese characters onscreen as well as to enable Microsoft IME to type Japanese characters.

Had previously shared how to activate Japanese input in Windows 7 and how to enable another keyboard layout for Microsoft IME by changing a value in the Windows registry.

Like in previous versions of Microsoft’s operating system, a drawback of activating Japanese input in Windows 8.1 is that the default layout used by Microsoft IME may not correspond to the keyboard you are using.

To change the layout used by Microsoft IME for Japanese input, you can modify a value in the Windows registry. Will describe below how to change that registry value to activate the Azerty Belgian (Period) keyboard layout.
(The same method also applies to activate other keyboard layouts like Spanish, Russian or Thai.)

First, open the Windows registry editor, you can accomplish this by right-clicking on the Windows start button, then clicking on the “Run” option.

In the “Run” window that appears, type regedit in the ‘Open’ field and click on the “Ok” button.

The “Registry Editor” window will appear, there navigate to the folder containing the registry values for the Japanese input keyboard layout: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts0000411\

In that specific folder, select and double click on the line ‘Layout File’.
The “Edit String” window will appear, in the ‘Value data’ field enter the text KBDBE.DLL for the Azerty Belgian (Period) keyboard layout and click on the “Ok” button. Now exit the registry editor.

Alternatively, if you are using another keyboard, you can enter the correct .dll value for your specific layout in the value data field.

When you switch to Japanese input using the combination of Windows key + Space bar, your keyboard layout to type Japanese will have changed to the new value specified in the registry.

For your convenience, described below is a method to enable Japanese input itself in Windows 8.1, which has been simplified compared to Windows 7.

Right-click on the Windows start button, then click on the “Control Panel” option.

The “Control Panel” window will appear, there select and click on the “Change input methods” option found in the “Clock, Language and Region” section.

In the “Language” window, click on the “Add a language” button.

The “Add languages” window will appear, in the alphabetically sorted list of languages scroll down to the letter ‘J’, there select “Japanese” and click on the “Add” button. Japanese input with IME has now been added.

Changing between input languages in Windows 8.1 can easily be done by pressing the Windows key + Space bar combination.