SetProcessPreferredUILanguages function (winnls.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Sets the process preferred UI languages for the application process. For more information, see User Interface Language Management.

Syntax

BOOL SetProcessPreferredUILanguages(
  [in]            DWORD    dwFlags,
  [in, optional]  PCZZWSTR pwszLanguagesBuffer,
  [out, optional] PULONG   pulNumLanguages
);

Parameters

[in] dwFlags

Flags identifying the language format to use for the process preferred UI languages. The flags are mutually exclusive, and the default is MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME.

We recommend that you use MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME instead of MUI_LANGUAGE_ID.

Value	Meaning
MUI_LANGUAGE_ID	The input parameter language strings are in language identifier format.
MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME	The input parameter language strings are in language name format.

[in, optional] pwszLanguagesBuffer

Pointer to a double null-terminated multi-string buffer that contains an ordered, null-delimited list in decreasing order of preference. If there are more than five languages in the buffer, the function only sets the first five valid languages.

Alternatively, this parameter can contain NULL if no language list is required. In this case, the function clears the preferred UI languages for the process.

[out, optional] pulNumLanguages

Pointer to the number of languages that has been set in the process language list from the input buffer, up to a maximum of five.

Return value

Returns TRUE if successful or FALSE otherwise. To get extended error information, the application can call GetLastError, which can return the following error code:

ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER. An invalid parameter is specified.

If the process preferred UI languages list is empty or if the languages specified for the process are not valid, the function succeeds and sets 0 in the pulNumLanguages parameter.

Remarks

Ideally, applications will call SetProcessPreferredUILanguages as soon as possible after launching.

After this function returns, the application can call GetProcessPreferredUILanguages to verify and examine the resulting language list.

When MUI_LANGUAGE_ID is specified, the input parameter language strings must use hexadecimal language

identifiers that do not include the leading 0x, and are 4 characters in length. For example, en-US should be

passed as "0409" and en as "0009".

Note Use of MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME is recommended over MUI_LANGUAGE_ID.

C# Signature

[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
        static extern System.Boolean SetProcessPreferredUILanguages(
            System.UInt32 dwFlags,
            System.String pwszLanguagesBuffer,
            ref System.UInt32 pulNumLanguages
            );

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows 7 [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2008 R2 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winnls.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll

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