bug report: System error messages (FormatMessage) not localized on localized WM5 Pocket PCs

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The PocketTV Team - 20 Mar 2007 01:35 GMT

System error messages (obtained by FormatMessage) are not localized on
localized WM5 Pocket PCs.

For example, on the Russian-localized WM5 Pocket PC emulator, FormatMessage
will always return english messages, regardless of the value of the
dwLanguageId parameter.

is that a known issue?

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Norman Diamond - 20 Mar 2007 08:27 GMT

In my experience, on real Pocket PCs, system error messages don't exist at
all. FormatMessage retrieves empty strings.

I've read that OEMs can decide whether their ROMs are big enough to store
system error messages. In my experience none did so.

I haven't tried it with emulators. Your example with a Russian Pocket PC
emulator looks like a bug in the emulated image.

> System error messages (obtained by FormatMessage) are not localized on
> localized WM5 Pocket PCs.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> is that a known issue?

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The PocketTV Team - 20 Mar 2007 10:42 GMT

> In my experience, on real Pocket PCs, system error messages don't exist at
> all. FormatMessage retrieves empty strings.

that's not always true. for example on the Dell Axim x50v, FormatMessage
retrieves the correct error messages.

but it is correct that on some devices (definitely not all), FormatMessage
returns empty strings, which is quite ennoying really.

> I've read that OEMs can decide whether their ROMs are big enough to store
> system error messages. In my experience none did so.

i'm seen the error messages on several Pocket PC's, so several manufacturers
included the english error strings.

> I haven't tried it with emulators. Your example with a Russian Pocket PC
> emulator looks like a bug in the emulated image.

well, then the bug exists on all the localised WM5 Pocket emulators, as they
all have the english error strings.

i'm not sure it's really a bug, but it's definitely ennoying.

it would be nice if MSFT could

1) require that at least the english error strings be included on all WM6
devices

2) recommend that localized strings be included on localized devices
(although i'm not sure they support that correctly for devices that can
support multiple localizations).

it would be nice, but i know it will not happen, and all applications must
duplicate their error strings (and localized error strings) if they want to
give a meaningful error message to the user in case of standard system
error.

>> System error messages (obtained by FormatMessage) are not localized on
>> localized WM5 Pocket PCs.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>>
>> is that a known issue?

Reply to this Message

Norman Diamond - 20 Mar 2007 10:51 GMT

> that's not always true.

It's always true of my experience ^_^ which is what I mentioned.

> it would be nice if MSFT could
> 1) require that at least the english error strings be included on all WM6
> devices

That would be an absurd thing to do. Every application developer will still
have to write their own displayable error messages, the same as they do
today. In order to solve this, recommend (or require if necessary) that the
same language of error strings be included as the language of the rest of
the user interface.

> 2) recommend that localized strings be included on localized devices

Yes. English strings on English localised devices, etc.

>> In my experience, on real Pocket PCs, system error messages don't exist
>> at all. FormatMessage retrieves empty strings.
[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]
>>>
>>> is that a known issue?

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