.NET Internationalization: The Developers Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications

The .NET Framework 2.0 is available in 24 languages. The .NET Framework 1.1 supports the same list of languages, with the exception of Arabic and Hebrew. You can download the .NET Framework from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads (search on ".NET Framework Redistributable Package").

The .NET Framework redistributable is packaged differently for the .NET Framework 1.1 and the .NET Framework 2.0. We start by looking at the .NET Framework 2.0. The .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable package, dotnetfx.exe, is a single package that supports all languages. The dotnetfx.exe that you download from the English page is 100% identical to the dotnetfx.exe that you download from the French page. The difference lies only in the fact that the English page has instructions in English and the French page has instructions in French. The package itself, however, contains the complete user interface resources for all supported languages. The setup user interface adapts to the language version of Windows on which it is being run, so if you run dotnetfx.exe on French Windows, the installation dialogs are in French. The important point to grasp here is that the .NET Framework that is installed is always the English version of the .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework 1.1 redistributable package (see Figure 2.7) has some similarities and some differences to the .NET Framework 2.0 redistributable package. The package itself, dotnetfx.exe, is different for different languages. The "Change Language" combo box of the download page determines not only the language in which instructions are displayed on the download page, but also the language of setup dialogs used during installation. So the dotnetfx.exe that you download from the English page is not the same as the dotnetfx.exe that you download from the French page. If you run the dotnetfx.exe that you download from the French page, the language of the setup dialogs will be French (regardless of the language version of Windows that it is being run on). Despite this, the result of the installation is the same as for the .NET Framework 2.0. The .NET Framework that is installed is always the English version of the .NET Framework. Consequently, if your deployment team performs the setup process itself, there is no value in deploying a different language version of dotnetfx.exe.

You might wonder how you can get localized versions of all the text in the .NET Framework. Enter .NET Framework Language Packs. .NET Framework Language Packs include text and other resources for languages other than English. You can download Language Packs from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads (search on ".NET Framework Language Packs") as shown in Figure 2.8.

Select a language other than English (there is no language pack for English because the .NET Framework includes the original English) and click Go. As with the ".NET Framework" download, a similar page is displayed in the chosen language with an obvious "Download" button. The language pack files have the same name for each language, so you must create separate directories or rename them. You can install as many language packs on the same machine as you need. Your .NET application will use the resources from the language pack according to the current setting of the System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture property. We cover this essential property in the next chapter.