Search Paths for Oobe.xml (Standard 7 SP1)
7/8/2014
Windows Welcome, Welcome Center, and ISP Signup opportunities that consume content from Oobe.xml will check for and load Oobe.xml in the following locations, in the following order:
- %WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\Oobe.xml
- %WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\Default\<language>\Oobe.xml
- %WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country>\<language>\Oobe.xml
Note
When Windows Welcome finds a new Oobe.xml file in one of these locations it will replace any information found in the prior Oobe.xml files on a node-by-node basis. Welcome Center and ISP Signup opportunities will not perform node-by-node replacement; instead, the information in the new Oobe.xml file that is found will replace all the information found in prior Oobe.xml files.
Single Language Deployments
In a single language deployment, when it first runs, Windows Welcome will check the following location for Oobe.xml:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\
After the user has selected a country or a region, Windows Welcome will check for another version of Oobe.xml in the following location:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country>
If a country folder is found that matches the country that was selected by the customer, Windows Welcome will load it, and supplant the original Oobe.xml nodes with any nodes found in the country-specific file. If such a folder is found, Windows Welcome will load Oobe.xml from that folder, and supplant any information found in the prior Oobe.xml files on a node-by-node basis.
In this scenario, Windows Welcome also searches for an Oobe.xml file in the following location. However, because only one language is available on the system, you do not have to create this folder:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\Default\<language>\
Note
In some cases, when users change the system locale, the computer will restart after Windows Welcome. For example, changing from a western locale to an East Asian locale, or the reverse, will cause a restart to occur.
Multiple Language or Region Deployments
If you are shipping with more than one language, create multiple country folders for your target countries, and language folders for the target languages within the country folders. This includes an Oobe.xml with relevant country-specific and language-specific content in each language folder, in the following locations:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country1>\<language1>
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country1>\<language2>
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country2>\<language1>
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country2>\<language3>
In this case, <country1> can be Canada, and <language1> is French, and <language2> is English. <country2> can be France, <language1> is again French but with content designed for a user in France, not in Canada, and <language3> is Spanish.
Also, create language folders within the \Default folder and put an appropriately localized Oobe.xml in each, to accommodate scenarios in which the user does not select one of your destination countries:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\Default\<language>\Oobe.xml
If you are configuring Windows Welcome to present a copy of your license terms, put each appropriately-localized license terms file in its corresponding language folder:
%WINDIR%\System32\Oobe\Info\<country>\<language>
Country folder format
The country folders must be named based on the decimal version of the GeoID of the country. For example, to create a "Canada" folder, name the folder "39".
For a complete list of GeoIDs in Table of Geographical Locations, see this Microsoft Web site.
Note
These values are provided in hexadecimal format and must be converted to decimal to be used in the folder structure.
Language folder format
The language folders must be named based on the decimal version of the LCID value for the given language. For example, to create an "English" folder, name the folder "1033".
There are many more LCIDs than languages. A select few correlate to the languages that can be released with Standard 7.