Windows 8 provides a lot of additional content to specific regions, so it may be a good idea to change the region depending on where you currently are in the world.
When travelling the world you should always stay up-to-date on regional news and use local news services and apps. Windows 8 makes it quite easy to stay up to date and get local news, weather, apps.
Changing Region Settings
1. Step Open the Start screen and hit CTRL + F, enter “region” (if you use a different language, do a 1:1 translation and it should work). Alternatively, open the Control Panel and look for Clock, Language and Region
2. Step Now click the button on the left side to open the region settings
3. Step Go to the tab Location and from the dropdown select your Home location or the location you currently reside in
4. Step Click the Apply button to change the region and you should
5. IMPORTANT IMPORTANT: Now Log off(!) This is important or the PC will not apply the region and you will still get results from your previous region.
6. Step If you also want to change the language of your OS because you are fluent in that language, that’s very easy to do, simply follow our tutorial how to change, download and install new languages in Windows 8
Windows 8 May Use Your New Region Or Could Be Region-Locked!
7. Step If you followed all steps you should now get news for your new region. E.g. if you open the Bing app and your new region is the US it will use that region to search Bing.com – instead of your old region
The region setting is the most important setting that apps use to locate you. However, there may be some Windows 8 apps that are region locked and may take a closer look at your billing details. I believe the XBox app is region-locked unless you have a US billing details and a VPN you probably will not be able to purchase anything from the US Xbox Store. However, we have various tools and tutorials on our site:
IMO, Windows 8, Windows RT and WP8 should automatically set region based on location. Even without GPS, location should be close enough to set region.