International Server Deployment

Article
02/20/2014

Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.

Overview of Microsoft Project Server International Features

Microsoft® Project Server supports use by multilingual and multinational companies with a language plug-in called Multilanguage User Interface (MUI) Pack. To add language support after you have finished installing Microsoft Project Server, simply install the MUI Pack for the language you want to add. This gives your organization the centralized functionality of a workgroup environment, plus language-specific features designed for international users. Though Microsoft Project Server must be installed with a primary language, for example English or Japanese, Microsoft Project Web Access and Microsoft Project client applications allow you to work on project files in any supported language.

Some of the features that enable international support include the following:

The MUI Pack allows you to install, deploy, and use Microsoft Project Server in a mixed-language environment that can be tailored to the language requirements of individual users or entire organizations. Users will be able to use Microsoft Project Server in their own language and seamlessly collaborate with other users in their own languages.

Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Project Web Access now support Unicode, as well as code page-based information. This makes it easier to display information in a user's native language when accessing project data through the Microsoft Project client or Microsoft Project Web Access.

SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft allows users to add documents and issues in their native languages if these documents are created in Microsoft Office 2000 or Microsoft Office XP. Other users will be able to view these documents in their native languages when they check them out from the server.

Numbers, dates, and times are now based on a user's regional settings, as determined by the user's computer and the Microsoft Project client application.

Currency formats are determined at the time each new project is created and are maintained for all users of the project.

Input Method Editor (IME) is a software utility that converts keystrokes to characters in a language where characters represent words or syllables. Microsoft Project Server supports IMEs for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese for use in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Planning an International Deployment

You can install, customize, and maintain a single version of Microsoft Project Server throughout a multinational organization. Plug-in language features allow users in foreign locales to continue working in their own languages. Alternatively, you can deploy a localized version of Microsoft Project Server for each language-speaking area.

Before installing Microsoft Project Server, you should determine which language you want to install as your primary language for your organization. Data stored in the Microsoft Project Server database and the interaction between Microsoft Project Server, Microsoft SQL Server™, Microsoft Project Web Access, and Microsoft Project Professional 2002 is based on your choice of a primary language.

After installing Microsoft Project Server (which sets your primary language), determine which languages you need to add to your Microsoft Project Server installation. Add the languages by installing the correct MUI Pack onto Microsoft Project Server. Some users will need to install the language upgrades for Microsoft Internet Explorer in order to take advantage of the full multilingual capabilities of Microsoft Project Web Access.

Notes

The MUI Pack for Microsoft Project Server is available from the Microsoft Project Server Tools section of the resource kit toolbox. There are eighteen languages available: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Traditional Chinese.

The MUI Pack for Microsoft Project Standard 2002 or Microsoft Project Professional 2002 is available through Microsoft licensing programs such as Open, Select, and Enterprise Agreement. The MUI Pack can also be purchased from Microsoft Licensing or from a reseller. The MUI Pack for Microsoft Project includes the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.

Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, and Thai are available only as language-specific versions of Microsoft Project and not from within a MUI Pack. For more information about the MUI Pack for Microsoft Project 2002, see the International Deployment resource kit article.

Microsoft Project Server Installation Language

Microsoft Project Server uses the installation language setting found in the registry to determine which language will be the primary language during installation. This language setting is the locale ID (LCID) assigned to the value entry InstallLanguage, which Microsoft Project Server Setup creates in the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\MS Project\WebClient Server\Languages

The DefLCID name/value pair indicates the default language for Microsoft Project Web Access. The default language is used whenever Internet Explorer is not set to a specific language. See "Viewing Microsoft Project Web Access in other languages" in this article for more information about how to set a language preference in Internet Explorer. Any installed languages will have an LCIDnnnn entry in the registry, where "nnnn" is the four-digit language code, for example, 1033 for English or 1031 for German.

Microsoft Project Server code page limitations

A code page (or character set) defines the numeric representation of characters for a given set of languages. For example, the Western European languages use a common code page (1252) and Central European languages (such as Czech and Polish) use a different, common code page (1250), while Japanese has its own code page (932).

Since characters are stored in their numeric representation, it is the code page that determines the character that is displayed to the user. If the code pages between the Microsoft Project Server language, the SQL Server database, and the client operating system running Microsoft Project Professional are not the same, characters stored in the database may be interpreted incorrectly, which could lead to errors.

The language version of Microsoft Project Server dictates the language of the enterprise global template, which contains items such as views, calendars, and the default version name for projects. Since the enterprise global template is saved in the SQL Server database, if the code page of the database does not match the code page of the language of Microsoft Project Server, the information in the enterprise global template will not be stored properly.

To use different language versions of Microsoft Project Professional with Microsoft Project Server, the following conditions must be met:

The code page of the computer running SQL Server must match the code page of the computer running Microsoft Project Server.

The code page of the client computer running Microsoft Project Professional 2002 must match the code page of the computer running Microsoft Project Server.

The enterprise global template must contain a calendar with the localized name for the Standard Calendar for the language version of the code page of the client computer running Microsoft Project Professional.

How Microsoft Project Professional reads and writes data to the database server associated with Microsoft Project Server is a key issue. Microsoft Project Professional communicates with the SQL Server database through ODBC by sending and receiving ANSI characters. If the code page of the client computer running Microsoft Project Professional is not compatible with the code page of the computer running SQL Server, characters will be translated incorrectly or, if unrecognized, will be converted to the "?" character.

Problems can occur when Microsoft Project Professional users open an enterprise project, the enterprise global template, or the enterprise resource pool where: (1) a project, calendar, or version name contains extended characters and (2) the user's operating system code page setting does not match the server database's code page setting. In this case, the extended characters are converted to "?" characters. If the user saves the project, the project name will have changed because the original extended characters were converted to "?" characters. This results in a new project being created.

As a result, the code page of the computer running SQL Server and the code page of the client computer running Microsoft Project Professional must be the same. For example, to use the English version of Microsoft Project Professional with the Japanese version of Microsoft Project Server, the client computer running Microsoft Project Professional must have its code page set to Japanese.

Microsoft Project Server Multilanguage User Interface Pack

You can deploy the MUI Pack to take full advantage of the international features available to users of Microsoft Project Server. For administrators, the core functionality of Microsoft Project Server allows you to deploy a single version of the server, regardless of the users' language-speaking area. You can then add the language packs and allow users to select their own language settings, enabling them to use Microsoft Project Web Access and receive e-mail notifications and reminders in the language of their choice.

SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft

SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft must be installed in the same installation language as Microsoft Project Server. SharePoint Team Services does not support the same pluggable user interface as Microsoft Project Server because SharePoint Team Services is installed as a separate application that is connected to Microsoft Project Web Access through the Documents and Issues links in the top-level navigation. This restricts the user interface to a single language per installation of Microsoft Project Server. Even if a user can switch languages in Microsoft Project Web Access, all documents and issues stored in the Documents or Issues areas will remain in the language that SharePoint Team Services was installed in.

Ensuring that SharePoint Team Services URLs are in Unicode

If your Web server computer uses the same code page as a user's client computer, you can use double-byte characters in names, as long as you have set up the Web server running SharePoint Team Services to send URLs in Unicode. Making sure SharePoint Team Services sends and receives URLs in Unicode is a two step process:

First, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, do the following:

Select Tools.

Click Internet Options.

On the Advanced tab, select Browsing.

Make sure the Always send URLs as UTF-8 box is checked.

Click OK.

Next, you must configure the server running SharePoint Team Services to be able to receive requests for URLs in Unicode. In the following registry folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\InetInfo\Parameters

Set the following entries:

Type = REG_DWORD

Name = FavorDBCS

FavorDBCS = 0

Data = 0

Other Issues to Consider Before Installation

You should also consider these issues before installing Microsoft Project Server:

If Microsoft Project Server has multiple language packs installed, end users can choose the language for their notification and reminder e-mails. This option is available in the Subscribe to Notifications and Reminders page on the Microsoft Project Web Access Home Page.

Microsoft Project Web Access supports surrogate pairs if Microsoft Windows® XP Professional is the operating system used by the client machine. If Windows 2000 is used, there can be issues with the display of surrogate extension-B characters.

Preparing Users' Computers for International Use

All of the international features of Microsoft Project Server are designed to work on Windows 2000 Server, the recommended operating system for Microsoft Project Server. End users can interact with data stored on Microsoft Project Server through Microsoft Project Web Access or Microsoft Project Professional, both of which support multilingual use, as long as the operating systems of the computers those applications are running on support multilingual use. You can also set Web browsers, fonts, and printers to take better advantage of international features.

Microsoft Project Standard and Microsoft Project Professional are both designed to work on Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows NT® 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Some of these operating systems, such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP, are better suited to handling multiple languages.

Users of Microsoft Project Web Access will need to have Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher installed on their machine. For more information about setting up Microsoft Project in an international environment as a client application, see the Basic Installation resource kit article.

Choosing an Operating System

Microsoft Project Server must be installed on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (with Service Pack 1 or later), or on Windows 2000 Advanced Server.

Microsoft Project Web Access is run on the client machine through a Web browser. It will provide the best multilingual support if it is installed on a system with an operating system that supports the international features of Microsoft Project Server. Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows NT 4.0 provide adequate support for most international languages available for Microsoft Project Web Access. If your organization requires support for Asian or right-to-left languages, Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows XP Professional will provide the best level of support for display of project data in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Choosing a Primary Language

Microsoft Project Server supports the Unicode encoding method, which means that most features in Microsoft Project Server support language changes in the Microsoft Project Web Access user interface. However, some features are based on code pages—such as those that depend on the underlying operating system—and will not work correctly unless the operating system supports the interface language.

For example, Microsoft Project Professional does not use Unicode when saving files to the Microsoft Project Server database. So, if you have Japanese characters in a project and the code page of the client computer saving the project to the database is Japanese, but the code page of the database server is English, these characters will not get translated correctly.

When installing Microsoft Project Server, you should take into account this limitation and install the language version of Microsoft Project Server that will meet the language requirements of the greatest number of users in your organization.

Choosing a Web Browser

Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher is required to access the Microsoft Project Web Access interface. Support for switching languages displayed in the user interface is an integral component of Internet Explorer 5.5, and having Internet Explorer 5.5 installed ensures that this functionality will be available for any user of Microsoft Project Web Access.

Viewing Microsoft Project Web Access in Other Languages

Microsoft Project Server supports multilingual use as long as the appropriate MUI Pack has been installed on Microsoft Project Server and the language has been made available in Internet Explorer. Once these two steps have been taken, users of Microsoft Project Web Access will be able to switch the language displayed in the user interface between the primary language for Microsoft Project Server and any language added via an MUI Pack. Language support for Microsoft Project Server is automatically handled with the installation of the MUI Pack. Language support in Internet Explorer must be done manually.

To add support for a language in Internet Explorer:

Click Tools.

Select Internet Options.

On the General tab, choose Languages.

In the Language Preference dialog box, select the language you need to add support for.

Click OK.

Deploying Microsoft Project Server Internationally

Microsoft Project Server is designed to be used in a multilingual environment, either by installing localized versions of the application for each language you need, or by adding a Multilanguage User Interface (MUI) Pack to your primary language installation for each additional language your organization needs support for.

Instead of deploying a new version of Microsoft Project Server for each language that your organization needs to support, you can simply install the MUI Pack for the language you need as an add-on to Microsoft Project Server. Some scenarios for installing an MUI Pack instead of a localized version of Microsoft Project Server include:

When you need to simulate a localized version of Microsoft Project Server for a small group of users who don't actually need a localized version of Microsoft Project Server.

When you need to have different language options available on the same computer or users who need to switch between languages while using Microsoft Project Server.

When you need editing support for a specific language.

Multilanguage User Interface Packs

The MUI Pack for Microsoft Project Server includes files that allow users to display the Microsoft Project Web Access user interface and Help in multiple languages. By installing an MUI Pack, you can deploy a single version of Microsoft Project Web Access to all users, regardless of their language-speaking area. You can then customize the installation to include local language capabilities or allow users to select their own language settings.

Microsoft Project Web Access detects a user's Internet Explorer language setting. If the Language Pack for that language is installed on Microsoft Project Server, it will display the Microsoft Project Web Access user interface in that language. For example, if you want to view Microsoft Project Web Access in Korean, and its MUI Pack is installed on Microsoft Project Server, you will be able to view the Microsoft Project Web Access user interface in Korean.

Make sure you install Microsoft Project Server before using the MUI Pack to add languages. Once Microsoft Project Server is installed, run the MUI Pack Setup Wizard for the language you want to add. If you install a localized version of Microsoft Project Server, the default language setting for Microsoft Project Web Access will be in the same language. All localized versions of Microsoft Project Server will contain an English version as well, in case you want to switch the language settings to English.

MUI Packs for Microsoft Project Server can only be installed on a machine that already has Microsoft Project Server installed. They are available for the following languages:

Brazilian Portuguese (PSLPK_BP.exe)

Czech (PSLPK_CS.exe)

Danish (PSLPK_DA.exe)

Dutch (PSLPK_NL.exe)

Finnish (PSLPK_FI.exe)

French (PSLPK_FR.exe)

German (PSLPK_GE.exe)

Hebrew (PSLPK_HB.exe)

Italian (PSLPK_IT.exe)

Japanese (PSLPK_JP.exe)

Korean (PSLPK_KO.exe)

Norwegian (PSLPK_NO.exe)

Polish (PSLPK_PL.exe)

Russian (PSLPK_RU.exe)

Simplified Chinese (PSLPK_SC.exe)

Spanish (PSLPK_ES.exe)

Swedish (PSLPK_SV.exe)

Traditional Chinese (PSLPK_CH.exe)

Features available in Multilingual User Interface Packs

The MUI Pack Setup program installs features that allow you to change the language of the user interface and Help, including the following:

User interface

Help

User interface fonts (Asian languages and Hebrew)

Installing Multilingual User Interface Packs

To add an MUI Pack to Microsoft Project Server, do not use the Microsoft Project Server Setup program. If you attempt to run the Microsoft Project Server installation program twice, you will not be able to install a second copy of Microsoft Project Server.

Instead, run the appropriate MUI Pack EXE for the language you want to add to Microsoft Project Server. Microsoft Project Server MUI Packs can be downloaded from the Microsoft Project Server Tools section of the resource kit toolbox.

Removing Multilanguage User Interface Packs

In a busy international organization, a user might need the Microsoft Project 2002 MUI Pack for a particular language installed on a computer for short-term use. When a user no longer needs to work with files in that language, or if a traveling user moves on, these MUI Pack files remain on the computer. You can remove a MUI Pack, or even individual languages.

To remove a Microsoft Project Server MUI Pack

Click Start, point to Settings, then click Control Panel.

Double-click Add/Remove Programs.

Choose the Change or Remove Programs option.

Click Microsoft Project 2002 <language> User Interface Pack.

Click Remove.

Input Method Editor

Input Method Editor (IME) is a software utility that converts keystrokes to characters in a language where characters represent words or syllables. Microsoft Project Server supports IMEs for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese for use in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Maintaining International Installations

Microsoft Project Server makes it easy to install and maintain an international deployment of Microsoft Project.

Taking Advantage of Unicode Support

Microsoft Project Server is based on an international character encoding standard called Unicode. Unicode support in Microsoft Project Server allows users to work with projects in their own languages, interact with project data using a single Microsoft Project Web Access URL, and save all project data to a single Microsoft Project Server database, as long as the SQL Server computer is set up to support the languages users want to have interact with the installed language.

Microsoft Project Server also provides the conversion tables necessary to convert code page-based data to Unicode and back again for interaction with previous versions of Microsoft Project, plus font support that allows users to create multilingual documents with text from multiple scripts.

Differences between a code page-based environment and a Unicode-based environment

In a code page-based environment, each script has its own table of characters. Documents based on the code page of one operating system rarely travel well to an operating system that uses another code page. In some cases, the documents cannot contain text that uses characters from more than one script.

For example, if a user running the English version of Windows 2000 with the Latin code page opens a plain text file created in the Japanese version of Windows XP, the code points of the Japanese code page are mapped to unexpected or nonexistent characters in the Western script, and the resulting text is unintelligible.

The universal character set provided by Unicode overcomes this problem. Microsoft Project 98 was the first version of Microsoft Project to support Unicode. Microsoft Project 2000 and Microsoft Project 2002 also support Unicode, although some elements of the user interface, such as elements that depend upon the underlying operating system are limited to characters defined by the code page of the user's computer.

Using Unicode in file names

Using Unicode characters in file names is supported in Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP Professional. In Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Me, however, using Unicode characters in file names is not supported, and file names must use characters that exist in the code page of the operating system.