Windows XP with Asian Language Support – Textbox Caret Issue

Here is an issue that I have noticed (and has bugged me) for a long time, but I think I may be the only person who has noticed this because I never read about it on any newsgroups, blogs, or knowledge base articles. I believe there is a problem with textboxes in the English version Windows XP when Asian language support is enabled (specifically Japanese). If you are typing in a standard windows textbox and the caret gets to the end of the textbox, the caret appears to be either in the middle or to the left of the character instead of to the right of the character. This does not happen in the English version Windows XP when Asian language support is not enabled.

For Example:
If you were to type “abcdefghijkl” into a textbox and it completely filled up the textbox, it would look like the following on Windows XP with Asian support: abcdefghijk|l (the | represents the position of the caret). On Windows XP without Asian support it would look like the following: abcdefghijkl| (which is how it should look).


Example of a textbox with this issue. The carat is actually to the left of the "i" even though it appears on the right side.


This is the same textbox on a machine without Asian language support. As you can see, the carat appears on the right-hand side of the "i" character as you would expect.

If the character is wide (w, s, etc.) the caret appears in the middle of the character. If the character is narrow (i, l, etc.) the caret appears to the left of the character.

This only happens at the end of the textbox.

Am I the only person who has noticed this, or are there others of you out there? If you have noticed this and it bugs you, please leave a comment. I want to know how many of us there are out there.