Communicator multilingual user interface

Recently I did a global deployment of OCS which required Communicator to be used in a few different languages. A great start for information on languages and localization for OCS components can found at the Modality Systems blog, but one piece of information I had a hell of time finding was deploying the multilingual user interface (MUI) pack for Communicator. Plenty of “go here to download” information available, but nothing on mass deployment.

The end goal was to deploy a single package to client machines consisting of Microsoft Office Communicator, the Microsoft Office Communicator MUI, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and the Conferencing Add-In for Microsoft Outlook. So we needed a silent installer for the MUI, but the.exe download would not respond to any kind of switches I used, no matter what.

Turns out I was just over-thinking the installer. It behaves the same way as the Live Meeting or Conferencing Add-In executables you download so you can extract the .MSI by using the –out:[File path] parameter. So, to snag the MSI which will work with any of the regular MSI switches such as /qb or /qn do the following: 

CommunicatorMUI.exe –out:C:\CommunicatorMUI

Inside of the folder you specify you’ll find CommunicatorMUI.msi, which you can use as you need.

In the end, having Communicator install in the same language as Office wasn’t a strict requirement, but if you do need that done Steven Westwell has a great post on automating the registry key for language settings. He keys off a custom task sequence variable for their builds, but I’m sure you could modify that script to read the Office installation language ID.

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Hi there. My name is Tom Pacyk and this is my small home on the web. I love the intersection of design, technology, and communication, which is a combination that led me to a career in sales and marketing roles at places like Zoom and ServiceNow. They're a bit old now, but I also had the opportunity to publish a couple of books along the way.

Portland, Oregon is home for me, my wife Beth, and our three kids, but I'm actually a Midwestern transplant—I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went to school at Purdue and Illinois. When I find some free time I'm probably going to concerts, rooting for the Portland Timbers, or working on my Sunshine Burn Photography project.