Windows XP Language packets
"Some day the Americans will understand that there is some intelligent life forms at this side of the Atlantic too"Some Microsoft programs can be localised. For example Windows XP and Office
XP. It is even possible to have many language versions in your system and jump
from one to another as you will. "The next version of Windows (WinXP) is expected to take this technology even
further with a single, language-independent binary supporting multiple language
skins." By this MS means, that in the future the localisation is not done as a part of
the code but (at last) as separate data files. Of course this includes not only
the characters but for example the direction of the text too. If you are
interested, read from MS.
There is so called Windows XP Multilingual User Interface Pack for that. The
problem is that it is not easy to get.
"The MUI Pack is only available to Microsoft's volume licensing enterprise
customers."
If you mange to get one, you will find there the files needed.
What you need is Windows XP US version (local version doesn't work !) and the
MUI of your selection. Lets say you need Russian version. You first install
WinXP US. Then you go for RU.MUI.
The installation program can be found from the Multilingual CD.
There is a directory 'C:\WINDOWS\mui\' but you need there these files:
MUISETUP.EXE
MUI.INF
MUIQFE.INF
MUIGFE.EXE
EULA.TXT
Of course you need the RU.MUI directory too. In RU.MUI these is 3051 files in 15 directories, 94 MB together. In FI.MUI there is 3049 files in 15 directories 92 MB together.
In Readme.txt you are adviced to use the installation tools found on the same CD where the language packet is, but having four CDs with same serials, I compared the files and found no differences.
When you have the files in the right place, either in CD or c:\windows\mui, just pray your gods and run this MUISETUP.EXE. It takes about 5 minutes in 2.4GHz AMD with 1GB and some 20 programs open.
After the installation you can select the language from Control panel: 'Date, time, Language, and Regional Options' + 'Regional and Language options' + 'Languages'. There is a selection 'Language used in menus and dialogs'. Change this and boot the system.
Here are the codes for languages:
| 0401 Arabic | ARA.MUI |
| 0402 Bulgarian | BG.MUI |
| 041a Croatian | HR.MUI |
| 0405 Czech | CS.MUI |
| 0406 Danish | DA.MUI |
| 0413 Dutch (Standard) | NL.MUI |
| 0425 Estonian | ET.MUI |
| 040b Finnish | FI.MUI |
| 040c French (Standard) | FR.MUI |
| 0407 German | GER.MUI |
| 0408 Greek | EL.MUI |
| 040d Hebrew | HEB.MUI |
| 040e Hungarian | HU.MUI |
| 0410 Italian | IT.MUI |
| 0411 Japanese | JPN.MUI |
| 0412 Korean | KOR.MUI |
| 0426 Latvian | LV.MUI |
| 0427 Lithuanian | LT.MUI |
| 0414 Norwegian | NO.MUI |
| 0415 Polish | PL.MUI |
| 0416 Portuguese (Brazil) | BR.MUI |
| 0816 Portuguese (Standard) | PT.MUI |
| 0418 Romanian | RO.MUI |
| 0419 Russian | RU.MUI |
| 0804 Simplified Chinese | CHS.MUI |
| 0c0a Spanish (Modern Sort) | ES.MUI |
| 041b Slovak | SK.MUI |
| 0424 Slovenian | SL.MUI |
| 041d Swedish | SV.MUI |
| 041e Thai | TH.MUI |
| 0404 Traditional Chinese | CHH.MUI |
| 041f Turkish | TR.MUI |
Done n050129