you just need a japanese keyboard (well it helps so you know what you are typing and I believe there is also a kana key to switch from katakana to hirigana) and just add japanese as an input language. I do this on all of my computers because my wife is japanese, but we run windows 2000 :-(
In 200o there are a few ways to get to it, one is to go in the text services in the control panel then just add japanese, it's pretty simple.
hope it helps some ??
