Visual Studio and Internationalization
Our developer customer base for Visual Studio is truly global. A significant portion of the Visual Studio user base is international, and as a result, we spend a lot of time and energy making sure that Visual Studio yields a great experience, regardless of locale, and we continually strive to improve that experience.
One recent manifestation of this was in how we handled language releases for Visual Studio 2012. In previous versions of Visual Studio, we would first ship the English version, and weeks later we would subsequently ship versions of Visual Studio localized into multiple languages. For Visual Studio 2012, we changed our internal processes so that when we shipped, we shipped all of our 10 languages simultaneously: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. All 10 languages are available from the Visual Studio download site.
This commitment continued with the recently released Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 (Visual Studio 2012.1) for which we also simultaneously released all 10 languages.
Beyond these 10 languages, however, Visual Studio can also be extended via additional “community” language packs. Throughout the Visual Studio 2012 product cycle, we maintained close partnerships with prestigious universities and with Microsoft Valued Professionals (MVPs) from around the world, with the goal of supporting additional languages in Visual Studio 2012. The resulting community language packs, available for Czech, Polish, Turkish, and Brazilian Portuguese, provide a localized experience for the majority of the Visual Studio user interface, with hundreds of thousands of localized words. These community language packs are available for download for Visual Studio Professional, Premium, and Ultimate, as well as for multiple Express versions.
Of course, the need for localized content extends well beyond the Visual Studio user interface. One of the largest sources of such content is the Visual Studio documentation on MSDN, available in all 14 previously mentioned languages. This translated content comes from a variety of sources, including Visual Studio team members, machine translation, and the community. You, too, can contribute, using the MSDN Translation Wiki, which enables you to suggest improved translations and be recognized for your contributions via the MSDN and TechNet recognition system. For more info, see the Developer Content Localization Team’s blog.
Moving forward, we strive to improve further upon the global experience we provide with Visual Studio, and we look forward to any and all assistance you provide in that endeavor.
Namaste!
Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ssomasegar.
Comments
Anonymous
December 05, 2012
I'd be really curious to know how many people pick Visual Studio in their mother language. Indeed, even though VS is available in my mother language, I would never want to pick that. Most samples and tutorials on MSDN and over the Internet are anyway in English. Development languages themselves are English based (string, dictionary, list, window, handle, ...). In my view, English reading/writing is mandatory if you do any software development.Anonymous
December 06, 2012
I live in Poland and I use english IDE. The reason is pretty simple: localized VS = localized error messages. You cannot search for them easily in google/bing (as almost all techincal blogs/stackoverflow/etc.. are english). I would use localized VS only if option to disable localizetion for error messages was to be provided.Anonymous
December 08, 2012
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December 09, 2012
@Whatever Our company halted Windows App development, not enough demand to justify the R and D costs. This is going to be an epic fail. Why do I want the Microsoft Logo on my phone, so it can serve as a reminder of all the headaches Microsoft caused me at work with their buggy software.Anonymous
December 17, 2012
This is so awesome I had to share ... www.youtube.com/watch The only thing that would be better if a Visual Studio .Net DVD was in the drive. This is "VISUAL HOW WE FEEL ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS"Anonymous
December 24, 2012
With so many features and additions I almost forgot how to program.Anonymous
December 29, 2012
I also do not need that internationalization. This make searches so difficult.Anonymous
December 30, 2012
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January 09, 2013
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January 09, 2013
@Soma: The documentation in Visual Studio has always been outstanding and something that should make Msft very proud. @Dave: I am not a Msft employee. The IDE and tools you use will not make you a better programmer. I still use Visual C++ 6.0 (after all these years).Anonymous
January 13, 2013
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January 16, 2013
@Marcello agreed it won't make you a better programmer but it should make you more productive at a minimum not slow you down, Visual Studio hampers productivity with unfinished features, bugs and poorly implemented classes. I personally find the MSFT book online are too wordy and not enough concise real world information. Soma / Microsoft should be ashamed not proud!Anonymous
January 18, 2013
@ Chris - we don’t currently have any plans to support non-US English. Eman Shaheen - Localization project manager at Microsoft.Anonymous
January 18, 2013
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January 24, 2013
@Dave. I am using the pre-"wordy" era of MSFT online books which reads as "October 2001 MSDN Library". It includes all the documentation needed for C++ development (C runtime functions and MFC classes) and also the Visual Source Safe 6.0d documentation: samples, code. Very clear and concise.Anonymous
January 26, 2013
@Marcello Everything Microsoft has done since XP and Visual Studio 6.0 has been utter trash and their condescending arrogant attitude towards developers and users is sickening (including SOMA and the VS Team.) I enjoy using my droid, chrome and mac. After work if I ever get the urge to feel the Microsoft experience I will go outside and slam my hand in the car door.Anonymous
January 26, 2013
With due respect, I want to ask for a problem. I want to develop for windows 8 but a hurdle comes in my way and I am unable to solve it. Previously I had release preview of windows 8 and I upgraded it to windows pro 8. It works really fine but when I try to install visual studio, the setup screen splashes and disappears. The iso file is monted but unable to install it. Have tried run that as a administrator and much more. I hope some one help me and I might work on windows 8 application development. Thank you!Anonymous
January 26, 2013
@Dave. I would like that to change as it is bad for the "ecosystem": developers should be tratead as 1st class citizens.Anonymous
January 28, 2013
Hello @Saad The few times we have heard about the problem you describe have been when there was an issue with the .NET Framework. I would first recommend trying to go to your PC Settings (Settings in the Charm Bar, and Change PC Settings at the bottom) or search for Change PC Settings in the start menu. Try the "Refresh your PC without affecting your files". If that doesn't work, we'll need to dig a bit deeper, and you can contact my team at vscss AT Microsoft dot com HTH, DavidAnonymous
June 11, 2013
Unfortunately, this article was remarkably useless. It tells me nothing I wouldn't have known by looking at the download page, other than plugging MS's way of saving money by crowdsourcing translations.