Install Language Pack on Windows 2008

[Petrarca]

I would like to install Windows 2008 alongside my Windows XP 64.

I've downloaded the 240 days test version of Windows 2008 from the MS homepage, but sadly it's not avaiable in Italian, so I downloaded the appropriate language pack iso and burned it as well.

However, the itegration of the language pack turned out much more difficult than I would've thought.

At first, I tried the newest versions of vLite (1.16rc) and Vista Update Integrator (1.0b5), which both *supposedly* support language pack integration.

I already have .net 3.5 installed (which includes .net 3.0 SP1 and .net 2.0 SP1), so I installed them right away. Turns out they're both extremely buggy: even with all background processes shut down, they kept crashing as soon as they tried to start the language pack integration.

Odd, but perhaps something in my installation they don't like, so I did a fresh install from the original XP 64 CD onto a new partition. The only thing I installed there was the required .net 3.5.

To my surprise, both (vLite and vui) still kept crashing as soon as they tried to start the language pack integration - on a 100% pristine XP! Talk about sloppy programming...

Thus, I just wasted a good amount of time with this junk

Then I went about doing it the "hard" way, as prevised by MS, downloaded the Windows 2008/Vista SP1 aik and installed it.

Sadly I had to find that the documentation is quite poorly done

From the original help for integrating a language pack:

To copy a language pack to a Windows Vista distribution

1. On your local workstation computer, create a folder to contain the Windows Vista distribution, such as C:\Windows_distribution.

2. Copy the entire contents of the Windows Vista DVD to the distribution folder.

3. Remove the Read-only file attribute from the files that will be modified.

4. From the Windows Vista DVD for the language you are installing, browse to the Langpacks folder. For example, if your DVD-ROM drive is D, insert the language-specific Windows Vista DVD and browse to D:\Langpacks.

5. Copy the language pack (Lp.cab) and its parent folder to the Langpacks folder in your distribution. For example:

Mkdir C:\windows_distribution\Langpacks\de-DE

Copy D:\Langpacks\de-DE\lp.cab C:\windows_distribution\Langpacks\de-DE

So good, so far (just that it's of course "it-IT" for me), but the trouble starts here:

6. Copy the license files and Setup resources for the language pack to the distribution folder. For example:

Xcopy D:\Sources\de-DE\* C:\windows_distribution\Langpacks\de-DE /cheryki

There is no "Sources" folder on the language pack CD! There's only a folder "langpacks", which contains folders named "it-it" etc., which in turn contain nothing but the "lp.cab".

Why doesn't anyone ever check back what is written in these guides?

I've then opened the "lp.cab" and found a folder named "sources" inside, which I extracted. However, there is no "it-it" subfolder in it, it looks like this:

sources
   |
   \---license
		  |
		  \---it-it
				|
				|---_default
				|
				|---eval
				|
				\---oem

What do I have to copy there?

I've also noticed that the "lp.cab" contains a folder named "setup". Do I have to copy anything from this folder as well?

After that, how do I proceed in adding the language pack?

Also, how do I change the language of the Windows setup?

While that's also written in that guide, I'd rather have it explained by someone who actually has a clue (given the poor quality of the guide).

[sp00f]

I used Vlite to do this in 2008 , worked fine.

[Petrarca]

I used Vlite to do this in 2008 , worked fine.

As I said, it always crashed when it was about to integrate the language pack, and it even crashed on a freshly installed Windows - so something is serously wrong with vLite.

Perhaps it just doesn't like XP.

What OS did you use when you integrated the language pack?

[sp00f]

Vista x64 & x86

[Petrarca]

Vista x64 & x86

I see... looks like you need Vista to do it then.