Ok, I think I at least know what my problem is, and it's looking pretty final to me, I will have to do a win7 install on another disk.
I have my language set up as UK English, if I go to add a language pack every language is there except US English which is what I need, settings are greyed out because microsoft do not think I should be able to change it, spent three fruitless evenings trying to sort! I cannot get the US English language pack as a download so now I have a quandary, my win8 is on a drive that is a bit tight on space so dual booting may not be an option, in which case I would need to get it on a bigger drive, time to break out Norton ghost unless anyone has a better idea.
Thanks