Availability

MLang.dll was first distributed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and has since been shipped with every version of Internet Explorer up to and including Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Table 17-1 shows the various versions of the Windows operating system (and Microsoft Office) along with corresponding releases of Internet Explorer containing MLang.

Table 17-1 Operating-system (and Office) versions with corresponding releases of Internet Explorer.

Operating-System (and Office) Version	Internet Explorer Version
Microsoft Windows 98	Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Microsoft Windows NT 4 Option Pack	Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1
Microsoft Windows NT 4 SP4	Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1
Microsoft Office 2000	Microsoft Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Windows 98 SE (Second Edition)	Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) for Arabic, Hebrew, and Thai	Internet Explorer 4 enabled for complex scripts
Microsoft Windows NT 4 SP5	Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 SP2
Microsoft Windows 2000	Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
Microsoft Windows 2000 SP1	Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 SP1
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me)	Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
Microsoft Office XP	Internet Explorer 5.01 SP1
Microsoft Windows XP	Internet Explorer 6

The MLang.dll distributed with Internet Explorer 4 implemented the original IMultiLanguage interface. Subsequent releases of Internet Explorer have included newer versions of MLang.dll that utilize additional interfaces. The MLang.dll distributed with Internet Explorer 5 implemented the IMultiLanguage2 interface, which updated IMultiLanguage by adding and expanding methods. These changes created new functionality for code-page detection and enhanced the existing functionality for character-set conversion. IMultiLanguage2 also supports the original capabilities of IMultiLanguage, such as character-set conversion and information retrieval from the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) database. IMultiLanguage3, implemented in the version of MLang that shipped with Internet Explorer 5.5, is a small addition that extends IMultiLanguage2 by adding functionality for outbound text detection. While IMultiLanguage2 replaces some functionality of IMultiLanguage, IMultiLanguage3 just adds two new functions to IMultiLanguage2.

Third-party developers can also use MLang.dll distributed as part of the Microsoft Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), which is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ieak/downloads/default.asp. As you will see in the sections that follow, software that interacts with Internet data can be made more international with MLang's numerous programming APIs.