Goals of Windows XP’s multilingual functionality
- Match all Windows 2000’s international features.
- Integrate Windows ME international features.
- Add support for new locales and new scripts.
- Improve the input method architecture.
- Improve the user experience by simplifying the language support installation.
Windows XP provides all of Windows 2000 multilingual experience to home users for the first time. For that matter, all flavors of Windows XP (Personal, Professional, and Server) provide the same level of international support.
Improved NLS Support:
National Language Support (NLS) changes enlarged the already extensive list of covered locales.
- New Locales:
- Divehi - Maldives
- Galician - Spain
- Gujarati - India
- Kannada - India
- Kyrgyz (Cyrillic) - Republic of Kyrgyzstan
- Mongolian (Cyrillic) - Mongolia
- Punjabi(Gurmukhi) - India
- Syriac - Syria
- Telugu – India
New 'Location' variable: the notion of 'location' was introduced in Windows ME to specify a user’s physical location - as opposed to the 'User Locale' setting that defines a user’s cultural preferences for the display of formatted data. This variable can be retrieved by using the new GetGeoInfo API and can be used, for example, by on-line service providers to define the closest service centers to your area.
The Dr. International Locale 101 article explains in a simple and effective way the distinctions between the different locale variables and their accessibility for both users and developers.
Invariant locale: this new locale’s (Locale ID = 0x01ff ) settings are similar to US-English international standards. Although this locale should not be used to display formatted data, applications can take advantage of it when a consistent and locale independent result is needed. The invariant locale can be an attractive solution, for example, when it comes to compare character strings using the CompareString API and a consistent result regardless of the User Locale is expected.
Redesigned Regional Options Control Panel:
Windows XP sports an extensively redesigned Regional and Language Options control panel that offers an improved user experience and integrates new international functionality. Changes to the UI, to the terminology, and to behavior are described below.
Regional Options page consolidates the system’s Regional settings, allowing users to:
- Set the User Locale (which controls settings such as number, currency, date & time formats) through the Standards and Formats control.
- Customize the User Locale settings through the Customize button.
- Specify a geographic location (Geo setting).
Figure: Regional Options Tab
The Languages tab clusters together all the system's language options. This page allows users to:
- Navigate to the Text Services dialog, where they can install input languages and methods
- Install or remove additional support files for the group of Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) languages, or the group of Armenian, Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew, Indic, Thai and Vietnamese languages. Most of the languages are installed by default. By clustering remaining language groups together, fewer reboots are required upon addition of new language support.
- Change the MUI language, if running on an MUI system.
Figure: Language Tab
The Text Input Languages dialog is invoked from the button in the Input Languages and Methods field on the Language tab. This new UI allows a better distinction between different installed input languages and input methods (keyboard layout, IME, Handwriting recognition, and speech).
Figure: Text Input Languages Dialog
The advanced tab only displays when an administrator logs on. The page allows administrators to:
- Set the system locale (for legacy non-Unicode application emulation).
- Install or remove codepage translation tables.
- Apply the current settings to the default user account.
The checkbox in the Default User Settings field allows administrators to configure the default user settings (applied to all new user accounts) with the current user settings.
Figure: Advanced Tab
Unattended mode installations:
Windows XP Regional & Language Options control panel provides silent / unattended mode setup support through several defined keywords. This support enables the configuration of the system's various regional and language settings without displaying the user interface or requesting user interaction - all the configuration information is provided in a separate text file, called an "answer file".
In unattended mode, setup reads from the answer file rather than from user input. Regional and language settings are specified in the answer file in the [RegionalSettings] section. The following keywords are defined (items in red are new keywords in Windows XP):
[RegionalSettings]
Language = <locale ID>
LanguageGroup =<language group ID>,<language group ID>,..
SystemLocale = <locale ID>
UserLocale = <locale ID>
InputLocale= <locale ID:keyboard layout ID>, <locale ID:keyboard layout ID>,…
UserLocale_DefaultUser =<locale ID>
InputLocale_DefaultUser =<locale ID:keyboard layout ID>, …
Modifications in Uniscribe:
The Uniscribe engine now supports even more scripts:
- New Indian scripts: Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Telugu, Kannada.
- New Arabic scripts: Syriac, Divehi.
- New font fallback support for East Asian languages. This complex script specific feature is now available to accommodate East Asian languages whenever the currently selected font and the font linking mechanism fail to define the appropriate glyph to be displayed.
Multilingual User Interface (MUI):
Windows XP with MUI Pack is closer to the localized experience than ever before.
- Improved coverage: Localization of the UI is boosted to 97% in Windows XP Multilingual User Interface Pack (versus 100% for a typical localized version). Most of these improvements can be attributed to changes made in the system’s Shell and to the elimination of string resources from the Registry. Folder names, shortcuts, friendly doc names, control panel, and desktop elements are now fully localized.
- Full coverage for help files: In Windows 2000 MUI, win32hlp files (*.hlp)and context sensitive content remain in English. Windows XP MUI handles these old ANSI based help files in addition to HTML based help files, allowing both to be displayed in the selected UI language.
- Easier Setup & Administration: Windows XP MUI setup uses Windows Installer technology and is packaged as an MSI file. This approach reduces setup footprints, for example in case of a network installation it allows for a remote uninstall. Also, improved unattended setup options, discussed above, allow a better definition of MUI specific variables. Finally, language group clustering makes language support installation an easier process with fewer reboots required.
- Resource versioning: Windows XP MUI version makes the MUI language resource file version stamping possible. Changes were made to allow:
- A mechanism to recycle old resource files.
- Fallback to English if updated resources are not available for a given MUI language.
- Supporting Service Pack and hot-fix scenarios where not all MUI language files can be made available at once.
Notice that the Windows XP MUI packages are distinct and separate SKUs for Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Data Server. Also, the MUI feature will not be available for Windows XP Personal.