September 17, 1999

The English edition of Microsoft Office 2000 includes the Microsoft Office Language Settings (SetLang.exe) utility and proofing tools for English, French, and Spanish. When you include these features in your Office installation, users can change language settings by running the Languages Settings utility. You can prevent users from changing language settings by not installing SetLang.exe when you deploy Office.

When you also deploy Microsoft Office 2000 MultiLanguage Pack or Microsoft Office 2000 Proofing Tools, users have even more choices and can significantly alter the language settings on their computers. For example, users can click Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and install additional language-specific proofing tools, user interfaces, and utilities. If these features are already included in your Office installation, users can activate them by running the Language Settings utility from the Windows Start menu.

In some cases, allowing users to mix language settings can cause problems. For example, if a user creates a document in German on an English operating system, and then sends that document to a user who has a Japanese operating system without German language support, Office might not correctly interpret the contents of the document. Other potential problems include incorrect sorting or inconsistent behavior of the proofing tools.

To prevent users from switching the language of the user interface or installing additional language features, use the Custom Installation Wizard to create a transform. On the Set Feature Installation States panel, set the feature Microsoft Office\Office Tools\Language Settings Tool to Not Available and Hide. Users who install Office by using this transform do not have the option of changing the default language configuration that you deploy.

Important   The Language Settings utility (Setlang.exe) is used to change the language of the user interface, Help, and proofing tools. The Office Resource Kit includes another tool, the Language Version utility (Langver.exe), which is designed for administrators only. Use Langver.exe to change the installation language (LCID) of Office 2000.

Related links

For more information about deploying Office in an international organization and installing language-specific features and tools, see Deploying Office 2000 in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.