Selecting a Product Installation Language

After you install the necessary language files on your servers, you need to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007 and run the SharePoint Products And Technologies Configuration Wizard.

Your first planning decision is the language you want to use for administering your farm. This will always be the language version of the product you install on all members of your farm. Only one installation language is supported per farm. All members of the farm must have the same language version of the product installed. To change the language used for administering the farm requires removing and re-installing the product on all members of the farm.

The product language does not have to be the same language as that of the operating system, but it probably will be in most cases. However, if your server administrators prefer English but your SharePoint farm administrators prefer a different language, install the appropriate language version of the operating system and add the necessary regional and language files on the server before installing SharePoint in the desired language. The operating system must provide the appropriate language support for the SharePoint product or even the installation dialog boxes cannot be displayed.

Understanding Language Template Packs

Language template packs allow site administrators to create SharePoint sites and site collections in multiple languages without requiring separate installations of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Language packs are installed on your front-end Web servers and contain language-specific resource files that support language-specific site templates. When you create a site or a site collection based on a language-specific site template, the text that appears on the site or site collection is displayed in the site template's language. Language packs are typically used in multinational deployments where a single server farm supports people in several different locations or in situations where sites and Web pages must be duplicated or hosted in one or more languages.

Language packs are also specific to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007 because of the number of extra templates included with SharePoint Server 2007. Table 4-1 lists the product language versions and language template packs scheduled to be available. Language packs for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007 are not currently bundled or grouped into multilingual installation packages.

Table 4-1: Product Languages and Language Template Packs
Open table as spreadsheet

Language	SharePoint product	Language template pack
Arabic	X	X
Bulgarian		X
Catalan (LIP)		X
Chinese (Simplified)	X	X
Chinese (Traditional)	X	X
Croatian		X
Czech	X	X
Danish	X	X
Dutch	X	X
English	X	X
Estonian		X
French	X	X
German	X	X
Greek	X	X
Hebrew	X	X
Hindi		X
Hungarian	X	X
Italian	X	X
Japanese	X	X
Korean	X	X
Latvian		X
Lithuanian		X
Norwegian	X	X
Polish	X	X
Portuguese (Brazil)	X	X
Portuguese (Portugal)	X	X
Romanian		X
Russian	X	X
Serbian (Latin)		X
Slovak		X
Slovenian		X
Spanish	X	X
Swedish	X	X
Thai	X	X
Turkish	X	X
Ukrainian		X

Installing Language Packs on Front-End Servers

After the necessary language files are installed on your Web front-end servers, you can install your language packs. They are available as individual downloads and must be installed on each of your Web front-end servers. You must install a specific language pack for each language you want to support. Also, the same language packs (and the same version of the pack) must be installed on all your Web front-end servers to ensure that each Web server can render content in the specified language.

Best Practices 

Install the language packs on any member of your farm that could be called into service as a Web front-end in the future.

Installing the language pack is simple and quick: Just run the Setup program. However, you must re-run the configuration wizard to modify the Config_db and register the new template support files. The steps are as follows:

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint Products And Technologies Configuration Wizard.

2. On the Welcome To SharePoint Products And Technologies page, click Next.

3. Click Yes in the warning dialog box that appears notifying you that some services might need to be restarted during configuration.

4. On the Modify Server Farm Settings page, click Do Not Disconnect From This Server Farm and then click Next.

5. If the Modify SharePoint Central Administration Web Administration Settings page appears, do not modify any of the default settings and then click Next.

6. On the Completing The SharePoint Products And Technologies Configuration Wizard page, click Next.

7. On the Configuration Successful page, click Finish.

Uninstalling Language Packs

If you no longer need to support a language for which you have installed a language pack, you can remove the language pack by using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. Uninstalling a language pack removes the language-specific site templates and resource files from your computer. All sites that were created with those language-specific site templates will no longer work. To return the functionality of the sites, simply re-install the language pack.

By default, sites and site collections are created in the language in which Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 was installed and you cannot remove that language option. In other words, if you installed the English version of SharePoint Server 2007 and then installed the French Language Pack, you cannot then remove English options. You can, however, uninstall French to remove the French option.

Hosting Sites in Different Languages

After installing one or more language packs, when a you create a site or site collection, you can choose an installed language for the site or site collection by choosing the Language-Country ID (LCID). This language ID determines the language that is used to display text and interpret text that is input on the site or site collection. For example, if you create a site in French, the site's toolbars, navigation bars, lists, and column headings appear in French. Or if you create a site in Arabic, the site's toolbars, navigation bars, lists, and column headings appear in Arabic. In addition, the default left-to-right orientation of the site changes to a right-to-left orientation to properly display Arabic text.

If it is enabled by the Shared Services Provider (SSP) administrators in the My Site configuration, users will be presented with a language selection option when first creating their personal sites. As with other sites, the language selection must be made prior to creating the site and cannot be changed afterwards. If you intend to permit personal sites to be created in various languages, the appropriate language packs should be installed and the option enabled prior to the creation of any personal sites by users.

Some user-interface elements such as error messages, notifications, and dialog boxes might not display in the language of the site because the supporting technologies-such as Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation, Microsoft ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005-are localized into only a limited number of languages. Generally, these type of elements are generated for content creators and site administrators and not users.

Site Collection Administration will always be in the language of the template selected for the root site of the site collection. Subsites can be created in a language other than that of the Site Collection root site. Subsite Administration will be in the language of the subsite. If you choose to create a subsite in a language different from the parent site, the template picker changes to the language choice for the site you are creating.

Important 

The language-specific template choice is a one-time, irreversible decision. This is not a choice that can be modified by adding and removing features or modifying the site definition. However, the locale of a site can be modified by the site administrator.