How to type Chinese on Windows 7

Open the Control Panel, click Change keyboards or other input methods Click Change Keyboards... Click Add... Choose Chinese Simplified, PRC - Microsoft Pinyin New Experience, then OK, then Apply

Typing Chinese using Pinyin

In the system tray, you can change typing mode. Type Pinyin, and select the characters as you type.

What native Chinese people actually do:

Most people who live in mainland China typically install a 3rd-party input method. Google Pinyin Input is very popular.

The Google input method has advantages:

• It is partially cloud based, and will add new words as they become common in Chinese.
• It is a bit smarter, and learns from what you type. For instance, if your home address uses a rare Chinese character, it will learn this and make it a top suggestion, rather than having to frequently scroll through lists of characters
• It has other advanced features

The downside is the software must monitor all keystrokes to function, so you need administrator privileges to install it.