First of all, you can use your keyboard as-is if you want
to type the occasional character with a french accent. See below:
Accented Vowels
Secondly, you can "trick" the computer into thinking that you
have plugged in a French-Canadian keyboard. (The computer cannot see
which letters are engraved on each key.) But if you don't know which
character is engraved on which key on a French-Canadian keyboard, the
computer will have the last laugh.
So, you need to know two things:
1) How to "tell" the computer that you have a French-Canadian keyboard:
Hold the "Shift" key down then press on the left "Alt" key.
Test the result by typing "/". On a French-Canadian keyboard, it
types a "é" instead of a "/". To "tell" the computer that you
have an American keyboard:
Do the same thing, type Shift-Left-Alt as you did above.
Test the result by typing "/". On an American keyboard, it
types a "/" instead of a "é".
2) Which letters are engraved on each key on a French keyboard.
Note that the accent symbol must be pressed before (not while)
pressing the character that will have the accent symbol.
The exception to this, is the e-acute (or E-acute),
that only needs one keystroke. The right-Alt key causes
a few select keys to have a third value. These values are the
script-U (third value of the M key). For this third value
hold the right-Alt key down (like a shift key) while pressing
the M key. Note that the French Canadian keyboard has a third value
for each of the numeric keys (above the QWERTY keys).
Click below to see the keys on a French-Canadian keyboard.
">French Keyboard
If this does not work, Go to Start,Setting,Control Panel, Keyboard and
select French Canadian. If it asks you to locate the file "kbdca.kbd",
insert your Win98 Installation CD in your CD reader. Then use WinZip to
extract file "kbdca.kbd" from the zipped file named "Win98/Win98_50.CAB".
Save file "kbdca.kbd" in folder C:\Temp\ so that you can browse to it
when you change your settings for the keyboard again.
Note: I used a software program named "zipscan" to locate this driver
in the CAB file.