SMS: System Management Server 2.0 Service Pack 2 includes limited MUI support for Windows 2000 clients

The Systems Management Server (SMS) client supports Multilingual User Interface (MUI) language switching capabilities on Windows 2000 Multilingual User Interface systems. However, there are some limitations in the implementation and these are described in this article.

Required Software and Configuration

Server:

• SMS 2.0 SP2, SP3, SP4, or SP5 English Site Server must be installed.
• SMS 2.0 SP2, SP3, SP4, or SP5 ICPx (ICP1, ICP4, or ICP5) must be installed at the same version as the software revision of the site server.

Client:

• The client system must have Windows 2000 or Windows XP with Multilanguage User Interface installed.
• The client system must have the SMSMUIActive registry key enabled.
• The client user interface language of the Windows 2000 or Windows XP system must be supported by the current System Default Locale, as set in Regional Settings.
  
  Note Incorporate Windows XP client information in the site as well. This information is applicable to both operating system versions. The SMSMUIActive registry value does not exist by default. To be enabled, this value must be created with the DWORD value of 1.

If the user selects a Windows 2000 user interface language that is supported by the code page referenced in the current System Default Locale, then they can log off, and then log on again to have the SMS client user interface be displayed in the same language as the Windows 2000 user interface. An example of this would be a user who has an English Windows 2000 user interface, and then decides to set the menus and dialogs to German in Regional settings, logs off, and then logs back on and has the German user interface. In this example, the user would also have a German SMS client. This level of language switching functionality at log on time is identical to the multilingual user interface language switching that is supported natively in Windows 2000.

If the user selects a Windows 2000 user interface language that is from a code page other than that which is supported by the System Default Locale, the log-off/log-on level of language switching is not supported. An example of this would be a user who starts with an English Windows 2000 user interface and then decides to set the menus and dialog to Japanese in Regional settings, logs off, and then logs on. In this case, the user would have an English version of the SMS client because the code page for Japanese is not supported by the System Default Locale.

In order for the user to switch to a language that is not supported by the current System Default Locale, the system has to be logged on to with a user account that has Administrator rights. This can be either the local user or an Administrator that is remote controlling the system. After logging on, the local user or the Administrator needs to go to Regional settings in the Control Panel, and then set the System Default Locale to the corresponding target language. They then must restart the system, and when the user logs on, the normal SMS localized client installation process starts.

Default Behavior

The SMS 2.0 SP2 English release did not have the SMS client MUI support enabled by default. To enable SP2 clients to support Windows 2000 MUI, the administrator must set a registry key.

The default SMS 2.0 SP2 client language is English, and this is true regardless of an ICP being installed or not. There are three cases when the SMS client is in English on an MUI system:

• The system UI of the client is English.
• The SMS localized client language files are not on the local client system.
• The logged on user interface language does not match one of the languages supported by the current System Default Locale (which is the code page referenced in the current System Default Locale).

Enabling SMS Client MUI Functionality

The client system must have the SMSMUIActive registry key and it must be enabled (set to 1).

This is the SMS Client MUI registry key: