Release Notes

for

MUI Windows Installer Package

March, 2003

 

This document provides information specific to the deployment and installation of the Windows MUI .MSI packages.

 

The Windows Server 2003 family Multilingual User Interface Pack now packages the user interface languages as Windows Installer files. These new Windows Installer packages offer several alternatives for deploying and installing user interface languages.

 


CONTENTS


 

1 ABOUT THE MUI MSI PACKAGES

2 INSTALLING THE MUI MSI PACKAGES

3 DEPLOYMENT OF MUI MSI PACKAGES

4 LIMITATIONS OF THE MUI MSI PACKAGES

5 FILENAMES FOR MUI LANGUAGES

6 COPYRIGHT

 


1          ABOUT THE MUI MSI PACKAGES


 

Each language is packaged as a single .MSI file. These new MUI .MSI packages help to simplify the deployment process, giving the benefit of Active Directory and Intellimirror technologies while improving support for the needs of multinational and multilingual employees.

 

MUI .MSI packages can help eliminate the need for administrators to preinstall required languages on company machines, since the packages can be installed across the network, from either ACL-controlled shares or through the Active Directory directory service, where Group Policy can be set to restrict access. This is particularly useful in scenarios where employees frequently roam to other machines across the corporation. Administrators can remove installations remotely once they are no longer needed, freeing up disk space and preventing the potential support issues that can arise when users select a UI language they don't understand.

 

For companies supporting one global system image, on-demand installation enables smaller and faster setups and images. If you do regional builds or CD-based deployments, include the Windows Installer package for each specific user interface language your company needs to support on a CD or network share.

 


2          INSTALLING THE MUI MSI PACKAGES


 

Each language is packaged as a single .MSI file, and can be installed in the following ways:

 

·         Double clicking the .MSI file

·         Right-clicking the .MSI file, and selecting "Install" from the context menu

·         Invoking the Windows Installer from the command line to install the .MSI file

 

2.1 Installing individual MUI package from the command line

 

To install the MUI .MSI packages from the command line, use the 'msiexec' command to invoke the Windows Installer service:

e.g. msiexec.exe /i x:\mui\0407.MSI

 

MUI installations are always performed per computer to allow all users of that computer use the user interface language.   Only a user with administrative rights will be able to uninstall the MUI packages.  You can also choose whether to set a particular language for the current user, the default user, or both.  These parameters are described below:

 

·         currentuser: If this parameter is set to 1, the current user’s interface language will be changed to the language being installed.  If this is not specified, the user interface language will be installed without changing the current user’s user interface language.

 

·         defaultuser: if this parameter is set to 1, the default user’s interface language will be changed to language being installed.  This will change the language of the logon screen and all new user accounts. If this is not specified, the user interface language will be installed without changing the default user account’s user interface language.

 

The following example installs the Japanese user interface language silently, and specifies that the current user and default user accounts should be set to Japanese:

msiexec.exe /i \\server\mui\0411.MSI defaultuser=1 currentuser=1 /q

 

Note: the allusers parameter specifies if the installation is per user or per machine and cannot be change from the command line because MUI should be installed per machine. If you set this parameter to 0, the installer will ignore it.

 

2.2 Installing multiple MUI packages from the command line

 

To install multiple languages at the same time, you must run Muisetup.exe from the command line and specify the languages by their lang ID to be installed using the -i switch. Do not include the .MSI file extension.

 

e.g   e:\muisetup.exe -i 0411 0409 0407

 

Additionally, you must use the muisetup switches to set the default user or access some advanced settings, such as the "UI Font" setting or the "Language for non-Unicode programs". Type muisetup /? at the command line for information about the appropriate switches.

 


3          DEPLOYMENT OF MUI MSI PACKAGES


 

Administrators can define user and computer configurations using per-machine assigned installations via Group Policy.  This will allow an administrator to install MUI packages on machines before users logon.  When installing MUI packages for East Asian or Complex Script languages, remote installation will fail unless the required regional language support for these languages is already installed on the user machine.

 

Publishing MUI packages in the Active Directory will only work for per-user installations.   MUI per-user installations are not recommended because only the installing user can un-install the package from Add or Remove programs in the Control Panel.  Other users will be able to use the MUI packages installed in the machine but won’t be able to uninstall them.

 


4          LIMITATIONS OF THE MUI .MSI PACKAGES


 

You should not use the Windows Installer service directly if you need to

 

·         Install multiple languages at the same time or

·         Access and set some advanced settings, such as the "UI Font" setting or the "Language for non-Unicode programs"

 

Instead, you should use Muisetup.exe (in either GUI or with command line switches) to carry out the installation.

 


5          FILENAMES FOR MUI LANGUAGES


 

To find out which CD includes which UI language files, you can browse the CD to see which .MSI files included on the CD. The file name is based on each language’s ID.  The UI languages and their MSI file names are listed below:

 

 

Filename             Language

0401.MSI            Arabic  

0405.MSI            Czech  

0406.MSI            Danish 

0413.MSI            Dutch

040b.MSI            Finnish 

040c.MSI            French

0407.MSI            German 

0408.MSI            Greek

040d.MSI            Hebrew  

040e.MSI            Hungarian  

0410.MSI            Italian  

0411.MSI            Japanese  

0412.MSI            Korean  

0414.MSI            Norwegian  

0415.MSI            Polish  

0416.MSI            Portuguese (Brazil)

0816.MSI            Portuguese (Portugal)

0419.MSI            Russian   

0804.MSI            Chinese (Simplified) 

0c0a.MSI            Spanish

041d.MSI            Swedish  

0404.MSI            Chinese (Traditional) 

041f.MSI            Turkish

 

Please note this list is just for reference purposes.  It should not be taken to indicate that all of these languages will be supported in the MUI pack. 

 


6          COPYRIGHT


 

This document provides late-breaking or other information that supplements the documentation provided on the US English OS CD of the Microsoft Server 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack.

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