Concerning Japanese mapping of your keyboard, take the following way. it might help you, though it is for win2k or xp.
Control Panel->
Keyboard->
Hardware->Property->
Driver->
Update Driver Alt+P->
Alt+N->
Select a known driver from the list Alt+D->
Alt+N->
Display all hardware Alt+A, and choose Japanese keyboard->
Alt+N
For your Hiragana input, refer to the following post:
Typing japanese into MS Word :: This is wierd! | Japan Forum
tim, you don't need to install the global IME when you have win xp installed.
start-control panel-date, time, language and regional options-regional options-languages tab-install files for east asian languages
--restart--
When you want to write Japanese text, you should do a bit more:
regional and language options-advanced tab-language for non-unicode programs-change English (US) into Japanese
option===>personal option===>language===>choose Japanese
Notepad will do for your daily Japanese, but when you need more, openoffice or other software would be better, I suppose.