GetProcessPreferredUILanguages function (winnls.h)

Article
10/13/2021

Retrieves the process preferred UI languages. For more information, see User Interface Language Management.

Syntax

BOOL GetProcessPreferredUILanguages(
  [in]            DWORD   dwFlags,
  [out]           PULONG  pulNumLanguages,
  [out, optional] PZZWSTR pwszLanguagesBuffer,
  [in, out]       PULONG  pcchLanguagesBuffer
);

Parameters

[in] dwFlags

Flags identifying the language format to use for the process preferred UI languages. The flags are mutually exclusive, and the default is MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME.

Value	Meaning
MUI_LANGUAGE_ID	Retrieve the language strings in language identifier format.
MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME	Retrieve the language strings in language name format.

[out] pulNumLanguages

Pointer to the number of languages retrieved in pwszLanguagesBuffer.

[out, optional] pwszLanguagesBuffer

Optional. Pointer to a double null-terminated multi-string buffer in which the function retrieves an ordered, null-delimited list in preference order, starting with the most preferable.

Alternatively if this parameter is set to NULL and pcchLanguagesBuffer is set to 0, the function retrieves the required size of the language buffer in pcchLanguagesBuffer. The required size includes the two null characters.

[in, out] pcchLanguagesBuffer

Pointer to the size, in characters, for the language buffer indicated by pwszLanguagesBuffer. On successful return from the function, the parameter contains the size of the retrieved language buffer.

Alternatively if this parameter is set to 0 and pwszLanguagesBuffer is set to NULL, the function retrieves the required size of the language buffer in pcchLanguagesBuffer.

Return value

Returns TRUE if successful or FALSE otherwise. To get extended error information, the application can call GetLastError, which can return one of the following error codes:

ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER. A supplied buffer size was not large enough, or it was incorrectly set to NULL.
ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER. Any of the parameter values was invalid.

If the process preferred UI language list is empty or if the languages specified for the process are not valid, the function succeeds and returns an empty multistring in pwszLanguagesBuffer and 2 in the pcchLanguagesBuffer parameter.

Remarks

Depending on the flags specified by the application, this function can retrieve a list consisting of the process preferred UI languages. If it encounters a duplicate language, the function only retrieves the first instance of the duplicated language.

When MUI_LANGUAGE_ID is specified, the language strings retrieved will be hexadecimal language identifiers

that do not include the leading 0x, and will be 4 characters in length. For example, en-US will be returned

as "0409" and en as "0009".

Note Use of MUI_LANGUAGE_NAME is recommended over MUI_LANGUAGE_ID.

C# Signature

[DllImport("Kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
        static extern System.Boolean GetProcessPreferredUILanguages(
            System.UInt32 dwFlags,
            ref System.UInt32 pulNumLanguages,
            System.IntPtr pwszLanguagesBuffer,
            ref System.UInt32 pcchLanguagesBuffer
            );

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows 7 [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2008 R2 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winnls.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll