by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/02/01 03:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/02/01/1568612.aspx
This post describes a completely true story. :-)
It was a few months ago, and I was sitting in a conference room for a presentation.
I wasn't giving the presentation, but I was in the group of people who helped to hammer it out.
The room was full of exec types. No VPs, but a General Manager, a bunch of Director types, and the odd Group Program Manager/Development Manager tucked in. People important enough to keep the presentation interesting in one of those kind of if-I-were-new-I'd-wonder-whether-my-job-was-on-the-line kind of ways. If you know what I mean. :-)
Anyway, people asked question, made statements, gave answers, and recorded issues to follow up on. Kind of what you'd expect if you have ever been in this sort of meeting before. I'm sure that every day somewhere at Microsoft one of those kind of meetings is happening in one place or another.
I'm sure these folks could do this sort of thing in their sleep. I'm sure sometimes they end up doing that sometimes (not every talk is interesting to every person!).
Then at the very end (around about the time that we'd call dessert had it been a meal), the presenter showed this link in the Vista Regional and Language Options (circled in the lower right hand corner, in red):
That link is actually this link, which now points to the new Windows Vista International Portal (during the beta I think it just went up to the home page).
All of them had probably had Vista installed of one build or another and maybe had even passed over that link without really paying too much attention.
But all of a sudden, EVERYBODY had questions -- will it be localized into all of the Vista languages? What will the content be? Will it include _____? And so on.
We shocked 'em, I think!
Anyway, the portal is very cool, with info on new features, tools, and more. Highly recommended.
Anything that can visibly surprise a group like that one did has to be worth a look! :-)
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gogolkj on 1 Feb 2007 5:09 AM:
btw, the correct link of the portal is http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/vista/vistahome.mspx. Yes, the page is very nicely done. But doesn't the guy in the photo looks a lot like Cedric the Entertainer? :)
Michael S. Kaplan on 1 Feb 2007 6:44 AM:
There are locale-based redirects that can be added, but I only posted the one with noredirects which should use the user locale setting if the page exists (the locale-specific ones may not fare as well if there is no page?).
Michael S. Kaplan on 1 Feb 2007 6:46 AM:
P.S. The misssing keyboards are in progress, and I hope will be done soon. :-)
Mike on 1 Feb 2007 10:23 AM:
I should add that unless the IE7 default locale issue discussed before is fixed, anyone trying to go to a locale-sensitive page may get sent to the wrong place. Microsoft.com is very aggressive with its redirects - to such a degree that MVPs often find it difficult to post reliable URLs for users because they may see something different to the user.
Michael S. Kaplan on 1 Feb 2007 10:34 AM:
Yes Mike, we have covered that -- and hopefully someone will be fixing it. That bug won't be around for as longas the Portal, or the link to it from RLO....
Tom Gewecke on 1 Feb 2007 6:15 PM:
Michael -- in Simplified Chinese, the Wubi IM's which I'm sure were in XP seem to be missing. Is that a real change or a typo or they will be made available later?
Michael S. Kaplan on 1 Feb 2007 6:23 PM:
Actually, they came with Office, not with Windows....
Tom Gewecke on 1 Feb 2007 6:29 PM:
Thanks, that clarifies it I guess. Are the Vista Wubi IM's in the Office 2007 which one can buy now then?
Michael S. Kaplan on 1 Feb 2007 7:05 PM:
To be honest, I am not sure whether they are in Office 2007 or not.