Download languages for Windows

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2010/08/08 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/08/08/10047395.aspx

You may remember my blog If you can't read it, then that freaking list clearly doesn't have you in mindfrom a few months ago where I pointed out a weird design inconsistency with the MUI language list in the online download pages for Language Interface Packs.

Now they have not fixed that issue yet; I don't even know if they think of it as a bug or not, actually.

But there is another issue that one might consider a side effect of this design flaw.

It isn't a side effect, for what it is worth.

Though the previously discussed design flaw breaks an easy mitigation to the bug currently under discussion.

The bug?

Well, it was the fact that you could not find the various download pages for the Language Interface Packs in a search, whether using the built-in search in MSDN, Google, or Bing directly.

The links I and another Blog had would be on the list -- lone items buried in a sea of links to the download pages of Office Language Interface Packs of various versions.

Now I do not mind a Blog showing up near the top of the list for some kind of official Microsoft thing.

And although I think it's a little weird when it's my Blog, I am trying to be accepting of that too.

I am even resigned to those cases where a Blog (or my Blog!) that links to the official page comes right above the official page itself.

Whether one find them to be more useful or not is irrelevant in my mind to the idea that the official documentation ought to be number one on the list.

But because of this bug where the pages are not having the language names registered as keywords, in this case the official pages don't show up at all!

Now if the design flaw I mentioned in If you can't read it, then that freaking list clearly doesn't have you in mind were not there, then maybe the fact that at least the language name in that language would be on the page would be something of a partial mitigation -- one per page, at least.

Though in theory those items are on the list now so the mitigation may be of limited use (unless something like the fix suggested by Mihai in the comments to that blog would be more effective mitigation).

Luckily there is a better mitigation now., until that desoign flaw is fixed.

The NEW

Download languages for Windows

page!

This page includes not only a full listing of every single LIP for Windows 7 and Vista with both the English and Native name AND either a link to the download or a coming soon note if it is not yet available.

I mean it has that. But it also has a partial mitigation for the problem I mentioned in When terminology affects satisfaction -- because additionally it has:

similar information for the Language Packs with a link to how/where to get them, and
clear text telling you the requirements in each case -- for each language.

Though it simply lists languages and then gives you steps, it does not muck too much with the confusing and unituitive differences in the naming!

So now at least we have one place that has all of the information for every language in Windows for either version.

Perhaps over time the search engines will find this central clearinghouse page

Now there is an Office page that is meant to do something similar here but it is not nearly as cool, for whole host of reasons that should be quickly apparent to anyone who compares the two pages.

When I think about problems like It used to be Windows doing it right, and Office following. But now...it is nice to see Windows leading the way better than Office on a usability issue of some type. :-)

Mihai on 9 Aug 2010 3:14 PM:

Wonderful!

Otaku on 3 Sep 2010 11:27 AM:

Has Windows Update for Vista changed to not offer other languages? I'm using Vista Enterprise x86 on a VM (English - TechNet download) and I'm trying to change to Chinese Simplified for the display language, but it is not offered via the Control Panel and it does not show up in Windows Update to be downloaded.

Michael S. Kaplan on 3 Sep 2010 12:37 PM:

There has not been a change, no. Are you sure its Enterprise and not Business or lower?

Otaku on 3 Sep 2010 12:46 PM:

Yeah, I double-checked, it's Enterprise. I was able to download, install and change the display language for Persian with the Vista and Office 2007 LIPs, but there is no way to do this with Chinese. I remember when I used Vista as my primary OS and always had languages available for download via Windows Update, but not in a VM, TechNet download. I guess the only other thing different is that I'm using Microsoft Update instead of Windows Update. Other than that, it's a pretty clean OS.

Michael S. Kaplan on 3 Sep 2010 6:37 PM:

Language Packs (e.g. Chinese) are NOT Language Interface Packs (e.g. Persian), and the ability to do one has nothing to do with the ability to do the other (see that "When terminology affects satisfaction" blog I reference above for more details on that).