Editing Multilingual User Interface (section)

== Advantages over Localized Version ==
The MUI technology was developed in response and as an improvement to ''localized versions'' -- an older technology for globalizing and deploying software packages. This section describes the differences and advantages of MUI over localized versions.

Windows localized via a MUI pack achieves the same goal as a localized version, but there are key differences. While both display menus and dialogs in the targeted language, only a localized version uses translated file and folder names. <!-- [what does this mean? some special folders are localizable (Documents, Downloads, ...) but a user created file/folder is not localizable (by the OS). Doesn't a language pack localize the special folder names? What else could it do?] -->

A localized version of Windows translates the base operating system, as well as all included programs <!-- [what programs?] -->, including file and folder names <!-- [so it does localize file/folder names. this contradicts above] -->, objects names <!-- [what's an object?] -->, strings in registry <!-- [really? what strings?] -->, and any other internal strings used by Windows into a particular language. Localized versions of Windows support upgrading from a previous localized version and user interface resources are completely localized, which is not the case for MUI versions of a product. <!-- [what is not the case for MUI?] -->

A MUI version does not contain translated administrative functions such as [[Windows registry|registry]] entries <!-- [registry entries are functions?] --> and items in [[Microsoft Management Console]]. 

One advantage of a MUI version is that each user of a computer can use a different language.<ref>{{cite web |title=About Multilingual User Interface |url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/intl/about-multilingual-user-interface |access-date=22 June 2022 |publisher=[[Microsoft]]}}</ref> For a localized version of the OS, this is not possible. It may be possible for localized applications but requires installing multiple versions; one for each language, and this may lead to application storage space and side-by-side installation issues. With MUI, the single version supports multiple languages, and the OS and applications use the user's preferred language. Further, the same OS can host an application that uses any of the application's supported languages which may be different than the OS selected language and even a language that's not supported by the OS.