Khmer Unicode Installation

Okay, by visiting this page I assume that you have experience problem in rendering text in this website or you need to print out a clean instruction and share it with your friends. Either one will do just fine. Let do it ! What the h*ll did I write? I am not stupid okay just read on…

Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.

Fundamentally, computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters by assigning a number for each one. Before Unicode was invented, there were hundreds of different encoding systems for assigning these numbers. No single encoding could contain enough characters: for example, the European Union alone requires several different encodings to cover all its languages. Even for a single language like English no single encoding was adequate for all the letters, punctuation, and technical symbols in common use.

These encoding systems also conflict with one another. That is, two encodings can use the same number for two different characters, or use different numbers for the same character. Any given computer (especially servers) needs to support many different encodings; yet whenever data is passed between different encodings or platforms, that data always runs the risk of corruption.

Source: Unicode Consortium

There are more than one way to archive a thing, so I start with the hard way first.

When talking about Unicode, font is not the only factor anymore. It involve Operating System the way it recognize the script code. In Windows® USP10.dll is the library file that responsible to make sure Windows® understand the Unicode that we talk above.

To make it system wide you need to update the USP10.dll located in C:\Windows\System32, but USP10.dll is protected by Windows® Operating System for security reason. You can not replace the file in normal mode.

• Install Khmer Unicode Fonts Version 5 or later version.
• Download this USP10.DLL file and extract USP10.new file from the .zip package to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
• Restart Windows® in safe mode

1. Restart your computer . 2. Press F8 during windows boot - before Windows logo appear. 3. Select start Windows in Safe mode with Command Prompt. 4. Press Enter

• Backup usp10.dll in Windows/system32 directory

>cd windows/system32 >cd ren usp10.dll usp10.old

• Replace USP10.DLL version 1.626.6000.16386 or higher

>cd ren usp10.new usp10.dll >exit

• Restart Windows®
• Enable complex script

1. Start -> Setting -> Control Panel 2. Double click on "Regional and Language Options".
Tick as show in the yellow region and Click on OK button.

Note: You will ask to insert Windows XP Setup Disk. Insert disk if you have or read this instruction about i386 folder.

The following section will teach you how to install Khmer Unicode using installation file. This method has more advantage than the first one since it will also install Keyboard Driver which allow you to type Khmer Unicode.

Please download the following file before trying this method:

• KhmerUnicode2.0.0 - this version ship with USP10.DLL

After downloaded double-click on the file KhmerUnicode2.0.0.exe to start the installation.

Note: DO NOT put the Windows XP CD in the CD-ROM drive before the installation program asks for it.

Click “Next” to continue

Default location is good enough unless you want to change. Click “Next” to continue

Click “OK” to continue

Click “Browse” to find folder i386, If you have Windows XP CD, put it in the CD-ROM drive and find the folder i386.
Click “OK” to continue.

Click “OK” to continue. Now wait for the installation to complete. This may take few minutes.

Click “Finish” to complete the installation

Please restart your computer to make the khmer unicode work properly.
— Thanks Chantra for his suggestion.

If you use installation file to setup Khmer Unicode on your Windows you will notice there is an icon on your taskbar.

Because Khmer Keyboard Driver was not ship with Windows XP, there is a tweak using a similar code name CA ~Cambodia but it actually mean Catalan.

To switch from language to another, just click on the shortcut letter and select the language you need. Or you can press the combination of (ALT + SHIFT).

Example - Switching keyboard layout (ALT + SHIFT)
This picture shows that Khmer keyboard is active.	This picture shows that English keyboard is active.

There is a problem for me when trying to configure Windows using second method. Because it will install the Keyboard driver and make CA the default keyboard layout which a bit of annoying me.

To get around this problem here what I did:
Right-Click on the keyboard icon on taskbar -> Setting 1. Select "English (United State) - United States-International" as a default input language. 2. Click OK to complete.
Well if not enough you can seeking for more advice from KhmerOS's Team.