Supporting Multilingual Applications


In a multilingual environment, it is important to ensure that your existing line-of-business applications run properly under any language version of Windows XP Professional. Multilingual and international considerations can impact legacy application support, as well as the development of new applications and the authoring of Web sites for international companies.

When you deploy Windows XP Professional in a global environment, it is important to ensure that all of your current and future applications and Web technologies are compatible with the language versions that you support.

Supporting World-Ready Applications

All versions of Windows XP Professional are built from a single world-ready source code. This simplifies supporting multilingual applications, because an application developed on any language version of Windows XP Professional following world-ready guidelines runs correctly on any other language version of Windows XP Professional. For example, a clerk in the Boston office using the International English language version of Windows XP Professional can run an application developed in the Tokyo office on a Japanese localized language version of Windows XP Professional, as long as the Boston client computer has installed the East Asian Language Collection (for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language support).

Supporting Non-Unicode Applications

In many organizations, legacy line-of-business applications were not developed according to world-ready guidelines. Older applications might not be Unicode-enabled, relying instead on the use of a particular code page for character encoding. These non-Unicode applications might not run correctly if the language of the application does not match the language version of the operating system (for example, running a non-Unicode Japanese order-tracking system on the International English language version of Windows XP Professional). In these situations, one of two problems commonly occurs:

  • The application fails to load.

  • The application loads, but text strings do not display correctly in the application s user interface.

In most cases, setting the language for non-Unicode programs of the Windows XP Professional based computer to match the language in which the application was developed solves the problem. In the previous example, if the Boston clerk sets the Windows XP Professional based computer s language for non-Unicode programs to Japanese, the strings in the legacy, non-Unicode Japanese order-tracking system s user interface will be correctly displayed in Kanji.

Note 

The language for non-Unicode programs can only be set to one language at a time. If you need to run non-Unicode applications in a variety of languages, you might want to consider porting the applications to Unicode through MSLU.

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The Microsoft Layer for Unicode

Another solution for porting a non-Unicode application to Unicode involves using the Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU) on computers running Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me. MSLU is easy to integrate into applications. It requires little more than recompiling the application as a Unicode component and including the MSLU library along with the other libraries used by the program. MSLU is available and fully documented in the Windows XP Professional Platform SDK.

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Determining the Compatibility of Your Current Applications

Before deploying Windows XP Professional, you need to test your internally developed line-of-business applications, and any third-party applications (such as antivirus tools), under each language version of Windows XP Professional that your organization supports in order to determine potential problems with multilingual or international compatibility. For example, if you intend to deploy the Japanese localized language version of Windows XP Professional as well as the Simplified Chinese localized language version and the MUI Pack, be sure to test your existing applications under all three configurations.

It is also important to test applications developed for one language version to see how they function while emulating the native language under a different language version of the operating system. For example, test any applications developed using the Japanese localized language version of Windows XP Professional (or earlier versions of Microsoft Windows ) on computers running the International English language version of Windows XP Professional, after making sure that those computers have the East Asian Language Collection installed.

Basic differences in application support and backward compatibility exist between the localized language versions of Windows XP Professional and the Windows XP Professional MUI Pack. Some 16-bit applications developed on localized language versions run better on those localized language versions of Windows XP Professional than on the Windows XP Professional MUI Pack. For example, the Japanese language version of Windows 2000 supports DOS/V applications, and the Korean language version of Windows NT supports HBIOS applications, whereas the Windows XP Professional MUI Pack does not.

To determine whether a specific third-party application (such as an antivirus tool) is certified as compatible with Windows XP Professional, see the Hardware Compatibility List link on the Web Resources page at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources

Developing Multilingual Applications

The Microsoft Global Software Development Web site provides extensive information to help application developers create products that take full advantage of the multilingual and international compatibility features of Windows XP Professional. For information about how and what it means to globalize an application, see the Globalization: Step-by-Step link on the Web Resources page at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources

For more information about creating world-ready software, see the Microsoft Global Software Development link on the Web Resources page at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources

Developing Multilingual Web Sites

Developers authoring Web sites in global organizations typically require a first-time site visitor to select a preferred language, which is then stored in a client-side cookie on the visitor s computer or as a property in the visitor s profile. Thereafter, site content always appears in the user s specified language.

An alternative approach involves using a script that detects the client computer s default browser language, and then serves the appropriate language version of the Web site to the client.

The key to developing a single Web site that can serve multiple language visitors is to properly structure the following two common language-dependent strings:




Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit 2003
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit 2003
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 338
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