There's a whole world outside the USA...

<Rant mode on>

Microsoft - why can you not realise there is a whole world outside of the United States when it comes to setting up and MAINTAINING operating systems?

I have lost count of the number of times I've setup a system, telling it to use English (Australia) only to find that it's switched back to English (United States). Even during the operating system setup process when I specify I want English (Australia) and go so far as to remove the USA references I manage to find it's "infected" my system once again.

Not only that but upon installing IE7 the first page I get hit with asks me about changing my search provider (not getting into that one right now) and also asks if I want to set myself up for English (United States) once again. Plus that option is the one that's automatically selected for me so if I'm not paying close attention I might just end up on the opposite side of the world!

Please please please - realise that when I choose my own country I really want to stay there. I'm Australian and darn proud of it, plus I'm sure this affects other country selections as well so I figure I'm not alone in this. I want to speak Australian English, not American (which if you ask a Brit is not real English at all!!)

Also I'd like to be able to specify regional settings in group policy so I can roll out my country of choice to the rest of the computers on the network, so they too don't get "infected" with English (United States).

<Rant mode off>

Hey - don't get me wrong. I quite like visiting the USA - I've been there some 9 times in the last 2 years, but I live and work in Australia, as do the servers I setup and maintain. I don't want to have to keep reminding these systems of that fact.

Am I the only one frustrated with this??