Kana input doesn't work on Microsoft or Google IME

Question

Romaji input works just fine, but I've been trying to switch to kana input recently. When I turn the "use kana input" switch on in Metro settings on Windows 10, and then try typing, it gives me this:

As you can see, the characters are still latin. If it were working properly, and I typed the same thing, i'd expect to see ちとしはきくまのり instead. I've tried switching my hardware keyboard to JIS layout, but the problem remains. This problem occurs on both Microsoft's IME and Google Japanese IME. If anyone knows how to solve this help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

I believe I have found the root of the problem. The kana input started to work after I updated. The problem comes from the specified .dll file associated with the KBDJPN layout in the registry editor. Previously, I had assigned a custom Colemak keyboard to this position, and while this works fine with romaji input, it seems that the Colemak.dll file cannot be used with kana input. If you have this problem on previous versions of windows, you should go into the registry edit and under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts\00000411, double click "Layout File" and change the data to KBDJPN.DLL.

Unfortunately, this solution gets rid of our colemak keyboard for inputting romaji. I suppose you could just use windows+space to cycle through languages, but there are a few problems with this.

1. Switching languages requires you to press the alt+tilde shortcut every single time you want to start inputting hiragana.
2. If you have a keyboard configured with qmk that is physically not identical to the japanese JIS standard, you will have trouble using both languages. I have configured my custom keyboard so that punctuation and numbers are in a different place. As such, when I try using kana input, some kana keys that take the place of numbers normally are in the wrong place.

There is one way that I believe I can fix this. This webpage explains how you can use Visual Studio and Windows Driver Kit to edit a registry file called kbd106.dll to make japanese input compatible with ANSI. Normal keyboard layout editors, such as Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 do not allow you to edit VK_KANA, which is the virtual key code that controls kana input. The other program that I found, kbdedit, that allows you to do this, is locked behind a paywall. I tried using the method indicated in the webpage I linked above, but couldn't get it to work. Ultimately, I just gave up and bought kbdedit, and that seemed to do the trick.

Answer 2

Sounds like you have some configuration to do -- your IME settings aren't quite right.

The below is for the MS IME on up-to-date Windows 10.

• The MS IME has a few different modes. I assume that Google's does too. One of these modes is Full-width Alphanumeric, which is what your sample output looks like. In this mode, the IME faithfully accepts keyboard input and produces the full-width (i.e. double-byte) characters for those glyphs. If I change to Full-width Alphanumeric mode and type your same sample string, I get ａｓｄｆｇｈｊｋｌ.
  → For kana input, you'll need to change the modes Input method, most likely to the Hiragana mode to Kana Input. For the MS IME, right-click the IME icon in the lower-right task bar and select Hiragana Input Method and then Kana Input from the pop-up menu.
  
  After clicking Kana Input, the IME should automatically switch into Japanese mode. If for some reason it hasn't, make sure to switch it manually. On Windows, the default keyboard shortcuts are either Shift + CapsLock, or Alt + ` (the backtick under the tilde, on the upper left of the keyboard). The IME icon should change from the capital A in the screenshot above to a hiragana あ as shown below.
  
• Also, for romaji input, the IME -- either Microsoft's or Google's -- only converts valid letter combinations into kana. Only the initial "a" in your sample string would have been converted (to あ), even in Hiragana mode. あｓｄｆｇｈｊｋｌ is what I get when I type that same string in Romaji Input and Hiragana mode using the MS IME.
• IME behavior is separate from keyboard layout. I've got the US keyboard layout active, but if I switch the IME mode to Input method → Kana Input, the same sample string from your question produces ちとしはきくまのり instead.

TL;DR: change to Input method → Kana Input, and then change the conversion mode from Full-width Alphanumeric to Hiragana make sure it's in Japanese mode, and not Full-width Alphanumeric.

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Please comment with any further questions about the above.