We need to test i8n for custom pages we have in SharePoint Central administration. It is easy and straightforward to change the language for a site, but central administration seems to be a bit more involved. Potential answers involve:
Detach the server from the farm, uninstall SharePoint from a machine in the farm, re-install SharePoint using the appropriate language pack for testing and attach it to the farm as part of the install. Do this every time you want to test a new language. Unfortunately, this approach does not work for standalone environments.
Run some psconfig commands to make it work. Maybe something like:
psconfig.exe –cmd adminvs –unprovision
psconfig.exe –cmd setup –lcid [lcid]
psconfig.exe –cmd adminvs –provision –port [port]Blow away the existing SharePoint environment and just install SharePoint again using the appropriate language.
I know that #3 will work, but it's not ideal. #1 probably won't work for us since we use standalone installs for our i8n QA test boxes. I'm hoping that something similar to #2 works, but I really don't know. Maybe that won't work in a standalone environment either.
Note that I'm fine with a solution that works in either SharePoint 2007 or SharePoint 2010. I'd prefer something that works for both.