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Exchange Team Blog
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Exchange 2007 Language Support

The_Exchange_Team's avatar
Jul 31, 2006

Dedicated to all our Exchange international users wherever you are and receive email (or voicemail).

 

Did you know that Exchange 2007 will be released in 11 languages for the server, 47 for Outlook Web Access (OWA), and 16 for Unified Messaging (UM)?  In the previous version Exchange 2003 (through SP2), there were 9 languages for the server and 25 for OWA.  Internationalization is a huge investment in the Exchange 2007 release, and we're making just about all of our planned languages available for trial with Beta 2.

 

Terry Myerson, Exchange Server General Manager, noted the language additions in his recent blog.  We hope you check them out with Beta 2.

 

Now, a bit about Exchange 2007 internationalization...

 

Exchange 2007 language coverage is divided across the administrative experience (Exchange Management Console, Exchange Management Shell), and the client side (Outlook Web Access, Outlook, Unified Messaging). The full list of language support is in the Exchange 2007 Language Support Guide. Note this Guide is in progress, and should reflect that Dutch, Swedish, and Mandarin (Taiwan) are supported for Unified Messaging (Dutch and Swedish with Beta 2, Mandarin Taiwan with RTM).

 

Administrative Experience

 

We decided to ship Beta 2 in 9 administrative languages so that customers can experience Exchange 2007 in their selected language.  This is really a first for us.  Also available for Beta 2 is a new language, Portuguese (Brazil), that we made available in a 32-bit version.  Russian will also be added at Exchange 2007 RTM.  This will bring the total language count for administrative support up to 11.

 

A few comments on operating system requirements for a localized Exchange 2007 administrative experience... In order to have a fully localized setup and administrative experience with Exchange 2007, you must install the Exchange 2007 language version atop the same language version of Windows Server 2003 (SP1, R2, or x64 Edition).  For example, if Japanese is the selected language for Exchange Server 2007, a Japanese version of Windows Server 2003 must be installed as the operating system. The exception to this case is if a Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI) in the language of choice for Windows Server 2003 is installed atop an English OS. The MUI approach offers a partially localized experience. Details about the operating system language requirements, availability and variations when using 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Exchange 2007 Beta 2 for trial are called out in an article posted to:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2007/productevaluation/operationsystemlang.mspx.  I encourage you to review this.

 

Client Experience

 

Outlook Web Access:

 

For the client experience, we hope you give the new languages supported for Outlook Web Access a try - all 47 are in Beta 2!  You can find the list of the OWA languages in the Exchange 2007 Language Support Guide.  All languages are automatically available for users to select from when the Client Access Server role is installed and OWA is configured.  We've included some screenshots of the localized OWA experience in several languages.

 

Click on thumbnails below will take you to larger version of those images.

 

Swedish:

 

 

Spanish (Mexico):

 

 

Japanese:

 

German:

 

French:

 

Unified Messaging:

 

Finally, the international experience for Unified Messaging.  You've probably seen the demos, or heard about accessing Exchange 2007 from the regular telephone.  With Beta 2 you can try the experience for yourself in one of 15 languages (the 16th language will be available at RTM).  Below is some information on how to install the language packs which can be downloaded from the web or found on the Beta 2 DVD.  For more information on using the language packs, please see the Beta 2 release notes.

 

When you install the Unified Messaging Server role in Exchange 2007, default Unified Messaging language pack(s) will be installed. You can then add additional language packs for Unified Messaging using the Exsetup.exe /addUMlanguagepack command. (For example, Exsetup /AddUmLanguagePack:de-DE /s:d:\Downloads\UmLanguagePacks would add the German Unified Messaging language pack from the specified source location.) There is not an Exchange Management Shell command that will allow you to add or remove language packs for Unified Messaging.

 

The following Unified Messaging languages packs will be available for Beta 2:

 

German, English (United States), French (France), Italian, Japanese, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), French (Canada), Korean, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Swedish, Mandarin (China PRC).

I hope you give the international experience available with Beta 2 a try. 

 

- Rafael Reyes, Program Manager, Exchange Internationalization

Updated Jul 01, 2019
Version 2.0
  • Unfortunately the UM server doesn't support danish :(

    I know Denmark isn't the biggest country in the world, but it's sad to miss one of the nice "selling features".
  • I've always disliked nationalized server versions.

    Of course, end user interfaces should be in the language of the end user, that's necessary and a good thing. But searching for error messages, problems, etc. yields much less results when looking for in another language.

    Of course, there's the whole event id system, which makes the whole problem a bit less of one. But the general problem remains.

    It would be nice if there were no "different language" versions, but if language could be always switchable "on the fly". Kinda like Mac OS X does it.

    MUI Windows is a step into the right direction - but has a lot of other problems.
  • Hi Henrik,

    Hi Henrik.  We will continue to add UM language support in future releases, and will make sure you are kept informed should Danish become available.
  • I just read the list of UM messages and Finnish wasn't one of the supported languages. This will be a major problem in Finland, because the Text to Speech and Speech Recognition will be useless. UM is one of the major selling points of Exchange 2007. I hope Finnish will be added soon. Do you have any any customers with Technology Adoption Program running Exchange 2007 in Finland?
  • You said: "With Beta 2 you can try the experience for yourself in one of 15 languages (the 16th language will be available at RTM)."
    But there are only 14 languages on the Beta2 web, what is the 15th? And what is the 16th?
  • Hi Wade,

    English US is one of the 15 languages and it's installed when you install the the Unified Messaging Server Role, the 16th language is Chinese (Mandarin) as a spoken language.