Here is the instruction how to make a Windows 7 machine capable of
reading and writing Chinese.  Have fun!
** A) Find the main dialog box.
1) Start | Settings | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options
** B) Install the language support.
2) Go to the “Advanced” tab (NOT the “Regional Options” tab where I still keep “English (United States)” as my default standard format.

3) On the top of the first dropdown list box, it says “Select a language to match the language version of the non-Unicode programs you want to use:”  In the dropdown list box, choose “Chinese (Simplified)-Microsoft Pinyin IME”.

==> If you don’t already have the language installed, it will ask you to
put the Windows’s CD in your CD ROM drive to install it.
4) Under “Code page conversion tables”, make sure the followings are
checked: All the items with “Traditional Chinese” (for Taiwan) or/and “Simplified
Chinese” (for mainland China) are checked.
** C) Install the IME (Input Method Editor).
5) Go to the “Language” tab, and click on the “Details…” button.
==> You should see a “Text Services and Input Languages” dialog box.
6) Click on “Add…” button
==> You should get an “Add Input Language” dialog box.
7) Under “Input language”, select “Chinese (Taiwan)” from the dropdown
list box and check “Keyboard layout/IME” on.
==> Now you should be able to select the methods you want to input your Chinese.  If you know bo, po, mo, fo, it is “phonetic IME”.  You may install both “Microsoft New Phonetic IME” and “Chinese (Traditional) -Phonetic” and see which one is more intuitive to you and then delete the other one later.  If you like, you can install ALL the IME’s, but you
don’t have to.  If you install all, you might find they are annoying
when you want to switch between English and Chinese.  For instance, you got five or ten different Chinese IME’s installed, then you have to pass five (or ten) Chinese modes before you reach the English mode.
** D) Customize how to switch between different Chinese input modes and
English mode.
8) At the bottom of “Text Services and Input Languages” dialog box,
click on “Key Settings”.  You can customize the hot keys (i.e. shortcut
keys) to switch between different modes.  I usually don’t customize this
so that I won’t feel too ‘disabled’ when I use someone else’s machine.
Usually people leave this alone (i.e. keep the default settings).
** E) Install Chinese fonts.
9) Simply copy the fonts (usually are TTF files) to C:\Windows\Fonts.