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Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site

Recently we had a problem with a (pretty large) site. The problem was that the site was created in English, while it should have been created in Dutch.  All content was in Dutch of course, but for instance the Site Actions button still said Site Actions, and when adding a document the buttons were "New", "Upload" and "Actions".

In order to solve this a couple of possible solutions were explored:

  • Saving the site as template didn't work, because you can only see the saved site when you create a site in the original language of the site
  • Using backup and restore didn't work, the site kept it's original language
  • Changing the language through the object model didn't work, because the Language property of the SPWeb object is read-only

This last attempt did trigger me to think that the language of a site is stored at SPWeb level. It is also stored in the database in the Webs table. So I decided to do a little test with changing the language in de database. And it worked like a charm!

Now you need to know that you're not supposed to change data in the database and that doing so is not supported by Microsoft. For me this was a very simple solution though to a pretty big problem. And the best thing was that it only took me 30 seconds to write the query and about 0.02 seconds to run it. Everything in the site is now Dutch, except of course for already created lists and libraries. So the name of the Pages library is still Pages and does not change to Pagina's. But the Site Actions button calls itself Siteacties, the Master Pages are Hoofdpagina's and View All Site Content is called Alle site-inhoud weergeven. You get the picture.. ;-) 

For changing the language of all sites in the content database to Dutch the query would be:
UPDATE dbo.Webs SET Language = 1043

Changing the language of one site collection can be done with:
UPDATE dbo.Webs SET Language = 1043 WHERE SiteId = [[SiteCollectionId]]

And for changing the language of a single web or subsite you can use:
UPDATE dbo.Webs SET Language = 1043 WHERE Id = [[WebId]]

Posted 04-29-2008 4:38 PM by Mirjam

Comments

Anders wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-02-2008 2:23 AM

And how do the query look like?? Example?

Matthias wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-04-2008 9:37 AM

Hi,

can you please provide us with the query you used?

Hartelijk bedankt

Matthias

Alex blog about Microsoft wrote Changing the language of an existing SharePoint Site
on 05-05-2008 8:26 AM

Mirjam van Olst did a great post about changing the language of an existing SharePoint Site. She tried

SharePoint, SharePoint and stuff wrote SharePoint Kaffeetasse #61
on 05-05-2008 8:46 AM

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Mirrored Blogs wrote SharePoint Kaffeetasse #61
on 05-05-2008 9:56 AM

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Rene wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-06-2008 7:14 AM

Great article. Do not forget first to be sure having first the Dutch LanguagePack for Moss 2007 already installed...

Joost Smit wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-06-2008 2:31 PM

I think that official Microsoft Support might be dropped for your complete server farm. This is an interesting question. Do you have experience on certain simple fixes through a SQL Query and the impact on the support by Microsoft?

Ivar wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-21-2008 7:04 AM

Thank you Mirjam

You are brilliant.

:-)

Julio Casal wrote Cambiando el lenguaje de tu sitio SharePoint
on 05-26-2008 2:03 AM

Mientras creaba una solución MOSS 2007 para un cliente local cometí un error de principiante. Creé el sitio de SharePoint usando la plantilla Team Site, en lugar de usar la plantilla en Español. Como sabrán, esa es una muy mala elección, puesto que no

Robert Graauw wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 06-06-2008 3:11 AM

3 woorden

GE

WEL

DIG

Julio Casal wrote Cambiando el lenguaje de tu sitio SharePoint
on 06-07-2008 8:44 PM

Mientras creaba una solución MOSS 2007 para un cliente local cometí un error de principiante. Creé el

Felipe Vallejo wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 06-09-2008 5:10 PM

Hi Mirjam, I did that but when i try to create a new page i'm getting the following error "There are no page layout files available in the master page library of the top-level site. Add one or more page layouts to this library before you create a page or set page properties.". The problem seems to be because SharePoint can't query the master and layouts library, but i can still using the site settings link to see the masters and layouts pages.

do you know what the problem can be?

Thanks in advance.

Gonçalo wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 06-19-2008 9:27 AM

Hi,

how can i know the codes for other languages?

(  especially portugal.. :P   )

??????sharepoint???????????? : Jecoso’ Blog wrote ??????sharepoint???????????? : Jecoso’ Blog
on 06-23-2008 8:58 AM

Pingback from  ??????sharepoint???????????? : Jecoso’ Blog

Steven wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 06-24-2008 6:18 AM

Thank you Mirjam

This post was a good help to me

jecoso wrote 修改sharepoint站点语言
on 07-01-2008 12:11 AM

好不容易把项目都按照需求做好了，这个时候用户突然说站点是英文的不好操作，要求改成中文的，怎么办总不能都重建吧，上网搜索了一下，找到了Mirjam

robinjlm wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 07-10-2008 12:38 AM

Thank you Mirjam!

I fllowed under your advice. But when I set language to 2052, the web page report error:

The website cannot display the page

HTTP 500  

  Most likely causes:

The website is under maintenance.

The website has a programming error.

Would you please help me?

thanks

Tommy wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 08-05-2008 8:18 AM

You really rescued my day

Djavan wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 09-19-2008 10:19 AM

Interesting, but the only problem here is that modifying directly the DB will invalidate Microsoft's support.

Warren wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 10-20-2008 2:08 PM

This is definitely NOT the way to do it ... you should NOT mess in the database.

The SPWeb.Locale determines the language of the site .. and can be set using the API.

something along the lines of ...

SPSite spSite = new SPSite(url);

SPWeb spWeb = spSite.OpenWeb();

CultureInfo locale = System.Globalization.CultureInfo(1033); // for en-US

spWeb.Locale = locale

spWeb.Update();

Miguel wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 10-21-2008 2:11 AM
Johan wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 12-05-2008 7:38 AM

I changed language in som of our sites this way and it worket great. The only problem I have run into is the "People and Groups: All People" listviews where I still get view names and column names in the original language. Any Idea on how I can change those? (testsite/.../people.aspx{D4F5EF39-E10B-4234-9E3C-656C44B3F4E3})

Mirjam wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 12-05-2008 7:48 AM

Hi Johan,

Names and columns of the people and groups list views are basically already created lists. They have their names directly attached to them and don't read the names out of the SharePoint resource files.

Unfortunaly changing the language only effects texts that are read from the resource files.

Regards,

Mirjam

Mirjam wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 12-05-2008 7:49 AM

Hi Warren,

Changing the Locale of your sites changes the Regional settings and will have no effect on the language of the site.

Regards,

Mirjam

Johan wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 12-17-2008 5:27 AM

And how about MySite's. Is it possible to change language for them as well? I get them in a separate Content db in SQL server and when I change language code in the webs table there nothing happends. Any idea?

Change language | keyongtech wrote Change language | keyongtech
on 01-18-2009 10:45 AM

Pingback from  Change language | keyongtech

Leonardo wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 01-22-2009 8:01 AM

Can you tell me how can I do this running not MOSS but sharepoint services and not be able to touch the DB (I'm using a share hosting). What I want is to have a single page where all the buttons (like Site Actions) appears in a different language! Thanks

Mirjam wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 01-29-2009 2:59 AM

Hi Leonardo,

Just changing the language on an single page is not possible (except by skinning the page with a custom httphandler).

Also changing the language of a site without access to the database is not possible. If you want to achieve that you should simply recreate the site in another language and rebuild it.

Good luck.

Mirjam

Sven De Bont wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 03-16-2009 3:39 AM

Just what I needed :-)

Thx Mirjam

Jonathan wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-06-2009 4:08 AM

Interesting, but as Djavan said, wouldn't it invalidate MS support of the farm/site ?

Anyone has experience dealing with this kind of case ?

Tys wrote re: Changing the language of an existing SharePoint site
on 05-06-2009 10:39 AM

After changing the language of my sharepoint sites by using this sql method, i can't select a pagelayout  anymore. Before, where i had the possibility to change the site templates and page layouts that can be used for a specific site, i can now only select site templates. When i undo the language change my page layouts are back.

Any suggestions on how to overcome this problem? I want my language changed, but i need to have my pagelayouts as well!

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