by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2010/09/17 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/09/17/10063606.aspx
It is true.
Every machine I run now is a 64-bit one, running a 64-bit version of a Microsoft operating system (well, in one case a 64-bit version of an Apple operating system....).
Now last week in 64 bits of awesomesauce, delivered!, I pointed out how the work was happening to add 64-bit version of all of the Language Interface Packs that weren't up already.
Well now, I can say that they are all officially up!
Here are the ones that had been released as "32-bit-only, ever" versions, which now come in both 32 and 64:
This is really awesome, I think. :-)
One important difference that does remain between the above list (and the remaining LIPs still coming out) versus the original 13 LIPs from Thirteen (13) can be a lucky numberis that those 13 (Basque, Catalan, Galician, Hindi, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Luxembourgish, Malay (Malaysia) Maltese, Norwegian (Nynorsk), Vietnamese and Welsh) will have both 32-bit and 64bit versions in the OEM and System Builder channels as well.
By the way, I find it very annoying that Galician is not in the blog's built-in spell checker; they suggest Galilean instead. Like how often would that make sense across the MSDN blogs?
Warning: Almost everything I have written up to now in this has been things that are fact. Everything that follows represents supposition on my part based on my observations and knowledge. You should only trust insofar as you trust ME since I am not speaking for Microsoft or any OEM partner or anyone else....
That difference though for those 13 versus the rest is not such a big deal -- it underscores some of what I think are the reasons behind the original thirteen that I didn't get into in Thirteen (13) can be a lucky number, which involves requests from people building images they were deploying needing to support certain languages!
Now OEMs are not shy about asking for what they need from Microsoft so that they can achieve their own plans, and if system builders are any less so, it would mainly be that they have fewer ways to get their message delivered than OEMs do (OEMs obviously have to have special connections because of the nature of the relationship). All of those folks also plan way out what they want to do and thus Microsoft wouldn't tend to be caught by surprise or anything in the way of demands or requests....
But the change to always release 32-bit and 64-bit for all LIPs? That was in many ways driven by customer feedback, some of which happened right here. and by its nature that has a lot less to do with long term plans than customer reaction (e.g. how easy is it to see a "32-bit only note" and start complaining about the problems that causes).
And the work done by Windows International Test to squeeze all of these languages in, and by Windows Release for doing all of that additional work that must happen before the release. because despite the fact that Microsoft has a lot of those same qualities related tro long-term planning and scheduling, there just happen to be some amazing people who are able to go the extra mile to get things done when it is needed. A lot of my thanks definitely go to them for their efforts....
In any case, we are all caught up, and on a much better road now.
And if in the future communications and plans see OEMs and system builders start to clamor for other languages, they will in all likelihood be able to spot the appropriate additional languages there as well. It is very customer-based.
If there is anything Microsoft is good at, one of those things is properly supporting the partners who are behind the purchase of tons of copies of our software on behalf of their customers.... :-)
Otaku on 17 Sep 2010 10:59 AM:
That's really great! I was running the Persian LIP on a VM because it was 32 bit only. Now I can run it on Win7 x64...whoo hoo!
Michael S. Kaplan on 17 Sep 2010 11:30 AM:
Let me know how it works for you. :-)
Otaku on 19 Sep 2010 9:07 AM:
عالیه ، خیلی خوشم میاد ازش (It's working great, love it!)