Given that I was replacing a PII-350 even the most bottom of the line machine out there now would be orders of magnitude more powerful, so I went looking for just that - bargain-basement last-year's clearance models. The clearance model I went with was configured for Canadian French. Not needing the keyboard nor giving a rat's ass about whatever OS was preinstalled since I'd be wiping it off anyway, French was not a problem.
I couldn't resist firing it up as-is though, and I was greeted by this très amusant welcome:
(And yes, I do realise the meaning of "exploitation" is different than its current English usage and simply means, as it used to in English, "to use productively". But it is just like knowing the French word for "bread" has nothing do with with physical discomfort but not being able to help seeing the English "pain" before translating nonetheless... in the land of cereal-box French these kinds of cross-language puns part of the culture.)
Literally: "Welcome to this Microsoft System of Exploitation"
And now that I have it and since I have an e-acute in my middle name, I'm now really tempted to use the French keyboard.
Oringinal post: http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/796885.html