Multilingual User Interface

Multilingual User Interface
Windows Vista Ultimate Start Menu before Traditional Chinese MUI was applied (left) and after Traditional Chinese MUI was applied (right)

Multilingual User Interface (MUI) is the name of a Microsoft technology for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and other applications that allows for the installation of multiple interface languages on a single system. On a system with MUI, each user would be able to select their own preferred display language. MUI technology was introduced with Windows 2000 and has been used in every release since (up to Windows 7). The MUI technology is covered by an international patent titled "MULTILINGUAL USER INTERFACE FOR AN OPERATING SYSTEM" (US Patent number: 6252589). The inventors are Bjorn C. Rettig, Edward S. Miller, Gregory Wilson, and Shan Xu.

Functionally, MUI packs for a certain product perform the same task as localized versions of those product, but with some key technical differences. While both localized versions of software and MUI versions display menus and dialogs in the targeted language, only localized versions have translated file and folder names. A localized version of Windows translates the base operating system, as well as all included programs, including file and folder names, objects names, strings in registry, and any other internal strings used by Windows into a particular language. Localized versions of Windows support upgrading from a previous localized version and user interface resources are completely localized, which is not the case for MUI versions of a product. MUI versions of a product do not contain translated administrative functions such as registry entries and items in Microsoft Management Console. The advantage of using MUIs over localized versions is each user on a computer could use a different language MUI without requiring different versions of software installed and dealing with the conflicts that could arise as a result. For example, using MUI technology, any version of Windows can host Windows applications in any other language.

MUI products are available only through volume agreements from Microsoft. They are not available through retail channels. However, some OEMs distribute the product.

MUI in Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows 7

Up to Windows XP, MUI packs for a product are applied on top of an English version to provide a localized user experience. Windows Vista further advances MUI technology with support for single, language-neutral, language-independent binary files supporting multiple language skins, with the language-specific resources contained in separate binaries. The MUI architecture separates the language resources for the user interface from the binary code of the operating system. This separation makes it possible to change languages completely without changing the core binaries of Windows Vista, or to have multiple languages installed on the same computer while using the same core binaries. Languages are applied as language packs containing the resources required to localize part of or the entire user interface in Windows Vista.

MUI packs are available to Windows Vista Enterprise users and as an Ultimate Extra to Windows Vista Ultimate users. MUI packs are also available to Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate edition users.

Beginning with Windows Vista, the set of associated MUI APIs are also made available to developers for application development.

See also

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Multilingual User Interface — Unter dem Begriff Multilingual User Interface (MUI), zu deutsch mehrsprachige Benutzeroberfläche, vermarktet Microsoft Systemerweiterungen für das Betriebssystem Windows und das Büro Paket Office, die es ermöglichen, auf einer Installation die… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Natural language user interface — Natural Language User Interfaces (LUI) are a type of computer human interface where linguistic phenomena such as verbs, phrases and clauses act as UI controls for creating, selecting and modifying data in software applications. In interface… …   Wikipedia

  • Graphics Device Interface — The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a Microsoft Windows application programming interface and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers …   Wikipedia

  • Messaging Application Programming Interface — (MAPI) is a messaging architecture and a Component Object Model based API for Microsoft Windows. MAPI allows client programmes to become (e mail) messaging enabled, aware, or based by calling MAPI subsystem routines that interface with certain… …   Wikipedia

  • Network Driver Interface Specification — The Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) is an application programming interface (API) for network interface cards (NICs). It was jointly developed by Microsoft and 3Com Corporation, and is mostly used in Microsoft Windows, but the open… …   Wikipedia

  • Microsoft Messaging Passing Interface — Microsoft Message Passing Interface (MS MPI) is an implementation of the MPI 2 specification by Microsoft for use in Windows HPC Server 2008 to interconnect and communicate (via messages) between High performance computing nodes. It is mostly… …   Wikipedia

  • Security Support Provider Interface — (SSPI) программный интерфейс между приложениями и провайдерами безопасности. SSPI используется для отделения протоколов уровня приложения от деталей реализации сетевых протоколов безопасности и обеспечивает уровень абстракции для поддержки… …   Википедия

  • Speech Application Programming Interface — The Speech Application Programming Interface or SAPI is an API developed by Microsoft to allow the use of speech recognition and speech synthesis within Windows applications. To date a number of versions of the API have been released, which have… …   Wikipedia

  • MUI — Multilingual User Interface (Computing » Drivers) *** Magic User Interface (Computing » General) * Multi User Interface (Computing » General) * Management User Interface (Business » General) * Metals U S A, Inc. (Business » NYSE Symbols) *… …   Abbreviations dictionary

  • Microsoft Office Language Packs — 2007 Developer(s) Microsoft Stable release 12.0.6211.1000 (2007 SP1) / December 11, 2007 Development status Active Operating system Microsoft Windows …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”