SharePoint 2010 Language Pack – How to install & be aware of their limits

Hello @all,

last time I've search a long time for SharePoint 2010 language packs. Now I've found the public URLs:

WSSv4 / Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack	Download
Office Server 2010 Language Pack	Download

It’s also important to follow the installation instructions:

Deploy language packs (SharePoint Foundation 2010)

Deploy language packs (SharePoint Server 2010)

Please be aware that language packs still create some limitation in for your SharePoint installation on SharePoint 2010. It’s the same limit like in SharePoint 2007. So it’s not too much that has changed. Let me try to summaries them:

• You cannot change an existing site, site collection, or Web page from one language to another by applying different language-specific site templates. After you use a language-specific site template for a site or a site collection, the site or site collection will always display content in the language of the original site template. Inside the object model you can see the SPWeb-Object with their LCID (language template id).
• If you are uninstalling SharePoint Foundation 2010, you must uninstall all language packs before you uninstall SharePoint Foundation 2010.
• Language packs are not bundled into multilingual installation packages. You must install a specific language pack for each language that you want to support. Also, language packs must be installed on each Web server to ensure that each Web server can render content in the specified language.
• You cannot remove the language pack for the version of SharePoint Foundation 2010 that you have installed on the server. For example, if you are running the Japanese version of SharePoint Foundation 2010, you cannot uninstall the Japanese language support for SharePoint Foundation 2010.
• Installing Office SharePoint server 2010 with language pack requires: WSSv4 language pack and Office Server 2010 Language Pack [Update 31.03.2011: this statement is not everytime correct. Office Server LP2010 should include WSSv4 LP files, but on some cases i found a kind of installation were not all files exist... in this case i've installed WSSv4 LP and Office Server LP 2010 on one machine. it solve the problem and no side effect exist :-) ]
• Every time install first ALL binaries before starting psconfig / Configuration Wizard to add the references into the Farm configuration.

 

Note:
Please be aware that an upgrade of SharePoint 2007 to 2010 increase the limits for your upgrade like these above. Please think one moment about Inplace upgrade including language packs. After an upgrade you need to do a uninstall action of MOSS 2007 and language packs of 2007, but we still have this rule: “You cannot remove the language pack” –> this means: we will do a workaround this like: add a blank new server with 2010 installation (including 2010 language packs) into the upgraded farm and remove the inplace upgrade server from your farm.)

I hope this help.

Regards

Patrick

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Hello SharepointJack,, SharePoint Language Pack (LP) binaries exist in different Version. E.g. LP in RTM-Version, LP in SP1 Version, .... etc. So it's interesting to see which Version of LP Patch Level you are comparing. get the Version of LP: Open File Property from Installer File and go to Details tab. There you will see the Version 14.0..... My friend Steve Chen has a complete list published with SharePoint build/version numbers. blogs.technet.com/.../build-numbers-cube-sheet-for-sharepoint-2010.aspx regards Patrick

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Hello Dirk, sorry for the late answer. In my testing i could identfy this behavior as in blog post. Office Server 2010 Language Pack requrire WSSv4 language pack (in RTM version). So in your case: yes we need to install WSSv4 language pack and Office server 2010 language pack. As i know this behavior was similar with the MOSS2007 language pack. Later versions of MOSS2007 language packs only required one package because Office Server 2007 language pack include WSSv3 language pack. regards Patrick

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Hi prem_sp, this sounds to me like a custom Webparts issue. Mostly it end with a message: "the custom Webpart was not designed and developed for this use". It's important to contact the contructor of this Webpart to discuss the behavior, you have seen and compare it with "how it is implemented". regards Patrick

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Hi Patrick, Silly question here. May i know is this language pack installation will apply each of the single wording in the sites/pages including the button text or linkbutton or other control's text? How about if there's any custom aspx  page that integrated as web part in sharepoint? Will it work too? Thanks and regards Pui

• Anonymous
  June 16, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 18, 2011
  Patrick, One question i am hoping you can help with. When installing the binaries i am able to streamline the latest CU/Updates into the Patches directory of the Binaries. Is it possible to do the same with the Language packs thereby negating the need to add them seperately after the install? Thanks

• Anonymous
  January 22, 2013
  I downloaded the language packs today to install on SP2010 and it looks like they are one giant installer now (it was 150MB or so)  If you've seen any updated information about this, please share.

• Anonymous
  July 08, 2013
  Hi, I have installed the arabic language pack. The default content translations are working fine. But, I have few custom web parts which are not getting translated. How to solve this issue?

• Anonymous
  July 08, 2013
  HI Patrick, I have similar issue, not with the web parts but with the custom content types. I have created fields in the custom content types which I am unable to translate.