The SDK team is working hard to produce a localized build for release over the next few weeks. Localization, for those of you not familiar with the term, is the act of producing content in a particular language, in other words, specific for one locale. In this case we're working to produce a Japanese version of our RTM English Windows SDK. In it will be Japanese-language versions of our .NET Framework 3.0 content. We're also delivering a version of setup that contains Japanese text rather than English.

What's made this an especially difficult release to get done is that the exercise has exposed all kinds of minor issues in our setup code. For instance, we use RTFs extensively in our setup code, but the Loc files have trouble parsing RTF. So Nanda, the main dev in charge of this project, has struggled like crazy to get the code to work correctly. We're under the constraint of not being able to modify code in a substantial way, so he's tasked with an almost impossible task.

Nevertheless, he's passed that pain point, and is now working on reintegrating the Framework docs into the release. It feels like it's all downhill from here, at least one can hope.

The Japanese version of the SDK will force an install of any other version of the Windows SDK that might be on the user's machine. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to produce the ability for a Japanese build to install side-by-side with an English build. We're working to change that in the "Longhorn" Server time frame.

In the "Longhorn" Server SDK, we're looking at releasing the SDK in all eight Visual Studio languages. That may or may not happen due to constraints both inside the SDK team and outside it, but that is currently our plan. In that release, we're planning on the SDK being a cumulative thing. Once you have the core features of the SDK installed in any language, adding a new release simply adds the localized content. For instance, if you install the SDK localized in Japanese and then turn around and install the SDK in English, you only receive the English-language content when you run that install. You won't be forced to re-download any content if you run the web install, which we think is what you users want. In that way, you'll be able to toggle back and forth between content in any of our localized languages, and will be able to treat them at par with each other.

Does this plan make sense to you? Does it meet your needs? Please post and let me know what you think.