I write this here not because of any relevance to Word,
but due to this being the de facto Windows international
features newsgroup. I would be interested in others'
thoughts on these points.

Because I often need to write in several languages, I some
time ago created a keyboard layout based on Windows's UK
layout that lets me type most Western European languages.
I was therefore interested to see that there is a new
layout, "United Kingdom Extended" with Windows XP SP2.

Whilst it seems to be primarily designed for writing
Welsh, it is certainly more versatile than its forerunner,
allowing the easy typing of all the common diacritics
(acute, circumflex, grave, diæresis and tilde) on all of
the vowels plus w, y and n that will take them. However,
with just a few modifications it could have been vastly
more useful.

Firstly, it shouldn't have been an alternative layout - it
should have been a replacement. Teaching schoolchildren
and workers how they can type characters is relatively
simple; requiring them to change keyboard layouts is not.
In fact, whilst for many specialists it is no great ordeal
to switch keyboard layouts to type a language using
broadly the same alphabet, to the novice the idea would be
absurd. Had this become the new standard, the Alt-Gr
characters and dead keys could be printed on the key caps
of Microsoft keyboards, prompting other manufacturers to
follow suit, and people would get used to the increased
functionality. Children would be less likely to hand in
their French homework with accents written in Biro on
otherwise neatly word-processed work, and secretaries
might begin to spell foreign names correctly. Microsoft's
page describing the layout* in the context of Welsh
expresses a desire for this keyboard to become widely
adopted.

Secondly, an unqualified grave should not have been used
as a dead key. Whilst being a scarcely used character
(except erroneously as an opening quote), it will cause
complications with some software somewhere. Of the
languages of the British Isles, only is Scots Gaelic is it
heavily used (I stand open to correction here). In all
other respects, this keyboard is backwards-compatible with
the old UK layout, as it should be. Full backwards
compatibility would then allow it to replace the original
layout.

Lastly, more characters should have been included. Æ
should be present, as many [British] English words are
correctly spelt with it, e.g. pædiactric, encyclopædia.
The shortcomings of standard keyboards have caused ae to
be used in place of æ in many texts - this hasn't replaced
the original spelling despite is ubiquity and the
Microsoft Office proofing tools' assertion to the
contrary. Here was a missed opportunity to rectify that
problem.

The most commonly taught and used foreign languages in the
UK are French, German and Spanish; in fact loan words from
these languages feature prominently in English. However a
few characters are missing from each of these languages'
alphabet. With the addition of just ß, o, ¿ and ¡, these
languages could have been written with a standard UK
keyboard in any application. Microsoft notes* that "this
new layout attempts to enable typing of letters for the
[...] languages in the British Isles (including all Celtic
languages), and some major international languages (with
the exception of some digraphs/ligatures)". It is a great
pity that Microsoft on realising this omission chose to
note, rather than correct it.

*
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/user/welsh.mspx