Using Multilingual User Interface

  • Article

This section describes how to use Multilingual User Interface (MUI) functionality to design and implement your applications. The following are aspects of MUI technology that will come into play at most stages of the application lifecycle.

  • Application development, including resource preparation, setting of application language preferences, finding and loading of resources
  • Building and localizing the application
  • Deploying the application

Here are some questions to consider when designing and implementing a MUI application.

  • What are the versions of Windows that the application will support?
  • In what languages will the application be localized?
  • Should the application language settings always follow language settings for the operating system, or should the application user be able to set specific languages?
  • What type of user interface resources does the application use and where are they stored?

This section includes the following topics. The descriptions assume a MUI application targeted at Windows Vista and later. The resources for this application are Win32 resources, with language-specific resources and executable code residing in separate Win32 PE files. Special considerations for support of pre-Windows Vista operating systems or for different types of resources are added as appropriate.