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Q: I have loaded Windows 7 & AOL 9.6 in a newer DELL laptop & most fonts in any program are foreign compared to what I had in my previous DELL laptop. This includes e-mail, Word Starter, & any program requiring text input. Calls to DELL have been a fruitless lack of communication. What can I do to return to English fonts?

– Thomas T.
Niceville, Florida

A: Windows is one of those pieces of software which, by its very nature, must try and be all things to all people. That is to say, it is used by people of every country in the world, speaking every language, and using every typeface that people use worldwide. It might seem humorous to me that Windows has language support for “Inuktitut” or “Xhosa”, but I’m sure if I belonged to one of those ethnic groups, and my ability to read and write was limited to my own culture, I’d be mighty glad of the support for my native language.

To accomplish the remarkable feat of providing coverage of the world’s many languages, Microsoft constructed Windows in a way that allows it to be assigned to one specific language. Because of the pervasive nature of the presentation language within the operating system, this is no small task, and it would be logical to assume that such a choice has to be made when the operating system is installed. That way, everything else that is installed can be built using the language of choice. In Windows 7, Microsoft takes it a step farther, and the language assigned to a given copy of Windows is done during production by Microsoft itself. In other words, Windows 7 is sold in language-specific versions, so if yours is presenting in a foreign language, it means you own a foreign language copy of Windows, and there’s not much you can do about that. The one exception is Windows 7 Ultimate. That version alone has support for changing to a different language. For any other version, you would have to first update to Ultimate to get that ability. You didn’t say how you happened to come by that copy of Win7. Is it possible that it was an online auction purchase, and someone unloaded their unusable copy of Win7 on you?

Q: I read the article on IP conflicts (I.G.T.M. #231 Dec 25, 2011) with a great deal of interest, hoping that I would see a miracle solver for me. However, your solution is what I have been doing but I still get the message that there is an IP address conflict on the network. I have a Belkin router with two computers hardwired out of it and one laptop that operates wireless. Don’t use the laptop much anymore. Even though there can only be one computer on at a time, I still get the IP address conflict message. Been getting it a lot lately. When I get it, the lights on the modem are usually gone, except for the power light. Many times they come back on by themselves and I have done the unplug/reboot thing about a 1000 times in the past month. A few weeks ago, Cox told me it was the modem so I bought another one. Alas, same problem!! I have a Belkin 1000N router that has worked fine for the past 5 yrs or so. Maybe it is getting old?? Cox signal?? I checked my IP DHCP server address range with the 192.168.2.1 and it is still set from .2 to 100. I have also reset the router per the Belkin troubleshooting to no avail. And, I have also changed the channels a couple of times. My network is secured and I run virus programs and others for cleanup which I do several times a week. Any ideas on how I can fix this problem? Change router? Cox generated problem? Weak signal??

– John G.
Shalimar, Florida

A: I have a couple of ideas, John. The first thing that jumped out at me is your assumption that the only things in your setup that use an IP address are your computers. If you have a networked printer, network-attached storage, a smartphone, a Blu-Ray player with BD-Live capability, a game system, or any of dozens of other kinds of internet-capable devices, they each need an IP address, which gives the potential for way more conflicts than you think. My column is way too small to give a comprehensive lesson on IP address assigning, but I suggest you check to ensure all of your computers get their IP address assigned dynamically. I’ll give a lesson on how to do that in next week’s column. In the meantime, you can tell the people at Cox that The Geek said their tech is full of (insert random yucky substance here). An IP conflict on a home network by definition MUST happen on your side of the router. The router sits between the modem and your network, so the modem is outside of your IP address pool and cannot be contributing in any way to an IP conflict, and their support tech should know that.