WINDOWS 1002000 PROFESSIONAL RESOURCE KIT [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Managing Windows 2000 Professional in a Multilanguage Environment

Windows 2000 Professional makes the process of deploying and supporting Windows 2000 across language boundaries easier and more flexible. To meet the needs of global businesses, Microsoft offers the following products:

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional English Version

Translated editions of Windows 2000 Professional (available in 24 languages)

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version

Table 7.5 compares the multilanguage support provided by each edition of Windows 2000 Professional.

Table 7.5 Multilanguage Support Provided by Windows 2000

The Microsoft MultiLanguage technology consists of two elements: multilingual editing and viewing and the multilanguage user interface that comes with Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Edition.

Multilingual Editing and Viewing Features

The multilingual editing and viewing features allow users to view and edit information in more than 60 languages. For example, a user with the English version of Windows 2000 Professional can work with a Japanese document without requiring a Japanese version of Windows 2000. This feature is part of all editions of Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Server, including both the English and the translated editions. This function is ideal for users who only occasionally need to communicate in another language. The ability to edit, process, and view documents in multiple languages is possible because of several components of the Windows 2000 Professional architecture, as described in the following sections.

Unicode Support

Windows 2000 Professional uses Unicode version 2.1 as its base character encoding. Unicode is an international standard that represents the characters that are in common use in the world's major languages. The benefit of Unicode is that it allows for unambiguous, plaintext representation of data, which simplifies sharing of data in a mixed platform environment.

National Language Support API

National Language Support in Windows 2000 Professional consists of a set of system tables that provide the following information:

Locale information such as date, time, number, or currency format or translated names of countries and regions, languages, or days of the month and week.

Character mapping tables that map local character encodings (ANSI or OEM) to unicode.

Keyboard layout information.

Character typing information.

Sorting information.

With Windows 2000 Professional, users can change their system settings to reflect those of their chosen locale through the Regional Options in Control Panel.

Multilingual API

The multilingual API contains functions to process text input and display—for example, changing the keyboard layout tables or the fonts used to display text. It also handles text layout issues, such as vertical text for Japanese or right-to-left text containing ligatures for Arabic. Applications that use these APIs contain basic, transparent support for creating mixed-language documents.

Resource Files

With Windows 2000 Professional, information that changes from language to language, such as menu text, dialog boxes and Help text, is stored in separate, language-specific resource files. This allows the system code to be shared by all language editions of Windows 2000 Professional—the only change from edition to edition are the translated resources.

Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version

Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version is designed with a single worldwide executable file that supports most European and East Asian languages, as well as languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. Instead of deploying a different translated version of Windows for each language that your organization needs, you can deploy Windows 2000 with the MultiLanguage Pack to all international users. The worldwide executable file makes multilanguage set ups much easier because there are few differences in set up routines, registry settings, and component configurations. The single worldwide executable file also streamlines the development and deployment of customized solutions.

The multilanguage version of Windows 2000 offers the following features:

Supports multilingual editing of documents.

Allows you to deploy different language user interfaces within your environment.

Allows users who speak different languages to share workstations.

Decreases the cost of implementing and maintaining multiple language environments.

Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version is available to Microsoft Open License Program (MOLP/Open), Select, and Enterprise agreement customers only. For more information about these programs, see the Licensing Programs for Enterprises link the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.

Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version provides an extra level of multilanguage support by allowing users to change the language of the operating system user interface. This means the user can log on to a workstation and use the Windows 2000 Professional user interface in any of the 24 languages that ship translated editions—provided that the appropriate language files are installed. Additionally, users can edit and view documents in more than 60 languages.

Upgrading to the Multilanguage Version

You can only upgrade to the multilanguage version from international English version of Windows. If you want to replace any other language version of Windows with Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version, you must perform a clean installation of Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version.

There are additional version restrictions that you need to be aware of when you are planning an upgrade to the multilanguage version. Table 7.6 provides version compatibility guidelines.

Table 7.6 MultiLanguage Version Upgrade Restrictions

Files and Language Groups

Two distinct collections of language files are necessary for user interface language support in Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version:

Language groups, which contain all of the necessary fonts and other files that are necessary to process and display a particular group of languages.

Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files that provide the language content for the user interface and help system.

For each user interface language that you install, Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version also requires that you install the relevant language group. For example, to use the German user interface, you must first install the Western Europe and United States language group.

You can install and uninstall Windows 2000 language groups during Windows 2000 setup and, after Windows 2000 setup, under Regional Options in Control Panel. Installing and removing Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files is a separate process from installing language groups.

Disk Space Requirements

Each additional language group that you choose to support on a single computer requires additional disk space. Table 7.7 displays the approximate amount of space required for each language group.

Table 7.7 Approximate Disk Space Required for Language Groups

NOTE

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A number of files (primarily fonts and keyboard layouts) are shared by several language groups. Therefore, if you install multiple language groups, the total amount of space required might be slightly less than a sum of table values.

In addition, allow up to 45 MB of disk space for installation of Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files for each user interface language you choose to install.

Setting Up Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version

To install Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version, you must first set up Windows 2000 and then set up Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files.

If you install the necessary language groups during Windows 2000 setup (before you install the corresponding Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files), you avoid the need to swap CD-ROMs when you install Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version.

The default user interface language (that is, the language applied to all new user accounts created on the computer) is determined when you set up Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version. You can change the default user interface or add or remove user interface languages using the Muisetup.exe file.

NOTE

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Adding and removing languages using Muisetup.exe affects only Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version files. To add or remove the files associated with language groups, use Regional Options in Control Panel.

For more information about automating the set up of Windows 2000, see "Automating Server
Installation and Upgrade" and "Using Systems Management Server to Deploy Windows 2000"
in the Deployment Planning Guide.

For more information about installing and maintaining Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version software in Windows 2000 Server environments and Group Policy considerations, see the "Software Installation and Maintenance" in the Distributed Systems Guide.

Using Group Policy to Manage User Interface Languages

Using Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version to reduce the number of client configurations in the organization can greatly simplify the job of administering clients. However, enabling all users to change the user interface language on their computer can add unnecessary complexity to the environment. For this reason, you might want to restrict some users' ability to change their user interface language. You can do this by using Group Policy settings from the User Configuration node of the Group Policy snap-in.

If you apply multilanguage Group Policy settings to a local computer by using local Group Policy, the local Group Policy object affects all users of that computer because there is no way to filter local Group Policy objects for individual users.

For more information about Windows 2000 Professional MultiLanguage Version, see the Windows 2000
Professional MultiLanguage Support link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.