Microsoft Multilingual User Interface (MUI) and Visual Studio

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Microsoft Multilingual User Interface (MUI) and Visual Studio

Windows Multilingual User Interface (MUI) Packs allow you to install an English version of Windows, and then install various User Interface Language Packs. User Interface Language Packs provide a localized user interface (UI) for the operating system. For example, you can install a Japanese User Interface Language Pack on top of an English version of Windows and then switch the Windows UI language between Japanese and English. The MUI allows you to have multiple language versions of Windows on a single computer.

Visual Studio can be installed on a version of Windows that has the MUI Pack installed. In addition, on computers with the MUI Pack installed, you can also install multiple language versions of Visual Studio, and then switch the Visual Studio UI language using International Settings, Environment, Options Dialog Box.

Limitations of Multi-Language Installations

Considerations to keep in mind when installing different locale versions of Visual Studio on the same computer include the following:



      The Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) does not allow more than one language version to be installed on the same computer. If you install another language version on a computer that already has a version of the Windows SDK installed, the existing version is overwritten.


      You can only switch languages between similar editions. For example, if you have an English Express Edition installed, a German Express Edition installed, and a Professional Edition installed, you can only switch languages for the Express Editions, not the Professional Edition.

Support for Code Pages

Some Visual Studio tools do not display text correctly when the text contains characters that are not in the current code page. Instead, question marks appear or the text is corrupted. The following tools or areas are affected:

   

      Sites deployed via FTP.
   

      Non-ASCII computer names.
   

      Command line tools that run outside of Visual Studio.
   

      Setup and Deployment projects.
   

      Setup Bootstrapper.


      Visual Basic Migration Wizard.


      ActiveX Control Test Container.
   

      Create GUID Tool.
   

      Error Lookup Tool.
   

      ATL/MFC Trace Tool.
   

      Spy++.
   

      OLE/COM Object Viewer.
   

      ISAPI Web Debug Tool.
   

      MFC application projects with HTML Help content.
   

      Projects with DataSource.


      Visual SourceSafe / SCCI falls back to English when there is an incompatible code page.
   

      Visual SourceSafe does not support Unicode filenames.