• Localizing the Boot Menu
  
  
• Localizing Setup
  
  
• Installing Language Packs
  
  

Microsoft has completely reengineered the boot environment for Windows Vista to address the increasing complexity and diversity of modern hardware and firmware. One aspect of this reengineering is a new firmware-independent data store that contains boot configuration data (BCD), which influences the boot process. For more information about BCD, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110353.

You can configure the BCD store to display localized text in the boot menu by using a combination of BCD store settings and true-type fonts. However, note the following two limitations:

• The language that is configured in the BCD store will apply to all clients of a particular architectural type. There is no way to configure language settings at a more detailed level or to enable users to select the correct language.
  
  
• Image names are displayed exactly as they appear in the metadata of the Windows image (.wim) file. Therefore, if you want the image names to be localized, you must change the names manually.
  
  

To customize the BCD store, see How to Modify the BCD Store Using Bcdedit.

You can configure Windows Deployment Services to support a localized installation experience to the same extent that you can configure Windows Vista Setup. For example, you can change the display language, the input settings, and the keyboard layout. To enable this functionality, you must edit the boot image to include the necessary localized setup files. The keyboard layouts and input device drivers are included in Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) by default (with the exception of Input Method Editor devices).

The language of the user interface of the Windows Deployment Services client is controlled by the language settings that are specified on the language-neutral page of Setup (an optional page that is not shown by default). The data that is displayed on this page is provided by the multilingual user interface (MUI) application programming interface (API). The data is populated based in the UI languages section of the Lang.ini file (in the boot image's \Sources folder). Selecting a language on this page loads the proper resources so that all text will be displayed in the selected language.

The keyboard layout selection menu is also derived from the chosen language. You can configure both the language and keyboard layout options in the Windows Deployment Services client unattend file. For more information, see Automating Setup. Some information shown on the image selection page, such as image name and description, will not be shown in localized strings. This is because the data displayed on this page is taken directly from the .wim metadata, which can hold only a single string in a single language.

To enable the language-neutral page and language selection

1. In the Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in, right-click the desired boot image and then click Disable.

2. Export the image.

3. Using ImageX, mount (read/write) the image marked as RAMDISK bootable (usually the second image in the Boot.wim file).

4. Copy the setup MUI resource files and their associated folder to the \Sources directory of the mounted boot image. For example, to add the German setup resource files to your English boot image, copy the \Sources\de-de directory and all of its contents to your mounted boot image at C:\Mount\Sources. At the end of this process, you should have two sets of setup resource files: English at \Sources\en-us, and German at \Sources\de-de.

5. If you are enabling a language that requires Asian fonts, perform the following additional steps. In all other scenarios, go to Step 6:

   1. Install the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) on either a reference computer or the Windows Deployment Services server.
      
      
   2. Use the Copype.cmd script to create a Windows PE distribution share.
      
      
   3. At the root of the C:\ drive, create a folder named Temp.
      
      
   4. In C:\Temp, create two subfolders: WindowsPE1 and WindowsPE2.
      
      
   5. Mount (read/write) the boot image to C:\Temp\WindowsPE1.
      
      
   6. Copy the Boot.wim image from the Windows Vista DVD to C:\Temp.
      
      
   7. Mount (read only) the second image in Boot.wim into C:\Temp\WindowsPE2.
      
      
   8. Copy the entire \Sources folder from the mounted image at C:\Temp\WindowsPE2 into C:\Temp\WindowsPE1.
      
      
   9. Unmount the image mounted to C:\Temp\WindowsPE1, and then commit the changes.
      
      
   10. Add the modified image to your Windows Deployment Services server.
       
       

6. To enable the language-neutral page, adjust the Lang.ini file in the mounted boot image to specify that additional setup resource files are available. The following is a sample Lang.ini file after editing:

   Contents of C:\mount\Sources\lang.ini
   [Available UI Languages]
   en-US = 3
   de-DE = 3
   
   [Fallback Languages]
   en-US = en-us
   

7. Using ImageX, unmount the image and then commit the changes.

8. Import the image. To do this, right-click the disabled boot image by using the MMC snap-in, and then click Replace Image.

In contrast to Windows Vista Setup, Windows Deployment Services has independent localization controls for the client installation experience and the install image. This functionality allows you to view the client installation screens in one language and keyboard combination. It also allows you to install an image that will have a completely different language and keyboard combination.

Windows Vista is language neutral, meaning that core system binaries and UI elements that contain strings (content that would need to be localized) are stored separately. The localized elements are known as multilingual user interface (MUI) files. All of the language-specific binaries for a given language are bundled together in a single package known as a language pack. For more information, see Installing Language Interface Packs (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111017)

Note also that Windows Vista enables you to add or remove language packs to change languages in a current image (although licensing restrictions may apply, depending on the version of the operating system that you are using). You can do this either online or offline. With this functionality, you can maintain a single image with associated language packs — something that was not possible with previous Windows operating systems, in which you needed to maintain a separate image for each language.

Methods

Storing Language Packs in the Image Store