SMS Multilingual Client Installation and Support

SMS 2.0 offers significant improvements over SMS 1.2 when supporting multilingual clients. SMS 2.0 supports 24 client languages. When an SMS central site administrator in Vancouver using an English-language version of the SMS Administrator console sends an advertisement to an SMS client in Amsterdam, the Dutch-speaking user will see the SMS dialog boxes in her own language. The administrator will be able to see the Dutch-language computer name and other client data using the correct Dutch-language character display.

Multilingual Client Installation Concepts

Localization to local-language character, time, and value display takes place at both the operating system level and within SMS. At the operating system level, you can change the Regional Settings properties to specify how the system displays characters and formats numbers, currency, and time and date values in accord with language-specific requirements. You can set the character mapping of the keyboard to various languages.

SMS 2.0 also localizes the SMS component software installed on the client to the supported client language. If SMS cannot match the language running on the client to one of the supported client languages, SMS will install the client software localized to the language used by the server software.

Operating system language and locales

The operating system user interface language is the actual language you see the operating system presented in. The locale is set in Control Panel (Regional Settings) and defines the font, sort order, date/time, number, currency, and keyboard input definition elements used by the operating system to localize for a specific language and culture.

Component installation bundles

A component is a functional area of the SMS client (such as software distribution). Within each SMS client installation, a component bundle is installed on the client. The bundle might contain the client agent executable file and the localized client user interface and message files. The bundles exist in the Inboxes\Clicomp.src\<component> directories on the site server and are copied to each CAP.

Multilingual Client Installation Process

This section describes the general process by which installation of a multilingual SMS client is accomplished.

Client installation and ICPs

ICPs are targeted for installation on the English SMS site server only, and the languages supported in each ICP are cumulative. Also, when you install an ICP, all of the client languages contained in that ICP are installed — you cannot select specific languages. The international client installation bundles are then distributed to the clients through a CAP, and the appropriate language files are installed on the client systems.

Client component installation

Each SMS client component installation bundle (for example, Swdist32.exe) contains all languages available for the most recent ICP installed on the site server. At the time of client installation, the SMS client software determines the current operating system user interface language (not locale) and installs all of the required local-language client files for that language, as well as a default language (the client default language as defined in the SMS site control file).

When the SMS client software needs to display text, it queries the operating system for the current user interface language. It then uses this value to reference the correct language directory to retrieve and display the correct SMS client language in the user interface.

Changing the locale

Changing the locale on a client will have no effect on the client language files used by the client. You can only change the client language files by changing the operating system language itself.

Installing a language that does not exist on the CAP

If the user installs an operating system language and the client’s language ID does not exist on the CAP, the client’s default language ID as defined in the client’s registry is used instead. The default language ID used will be the language installed on the server.

For up-to-date information about SMS multilingual support, visit the Microsoft Systems Management Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/smsmgmt/.

Table 3.5 lists the localization level and locale ID for each of the client languages supported by SMS 2.0.

Table 3.5 SMS 2.0 Localization