From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sun Dec 05 2010 - 11:55:59 CST
In addition, Windows won't let you replace the Uniscribe DLL that is
found in the System32 directory (the file is protected, and any
attempt to replace it, which is difficult as it cannot be performed
easily when the system is online but must be performed by booting from
onather separate OS installation to access to the filesystem of the
dormant system, will be detected because the new version will not
match with the existing metadata signatures.). In addition several
system services are depending on Uniscribe (notably most parts of the
Explorer GUI, parts of GDI32 and USER32, and system version specific
parts of DirectX ; it could cause the whole system to not boot
properly as they will typically no longer be able to work with the new
version of the DLL.
All what applications are doing in fact is to supply their own copy of
the DLL in their own application directory. But this DLL also has
other dependencies, including expectations about some core fonts that
will also need to be updated as well. apparently, Microsoft only
accepts to deliver updated DLLs under a non-disclosure contract with
application developers, that will install it as part of their own
installer ; I've never seen any separate autonomous installer of the
Uniscribe engine supplied with any application (not even with
Microsoft Office which supplies its own updates).
I don't know why Microsoft restricts so much the updates to Uniscribe,
but I suspect that this is a commercial strategy, to incite users to
upgrade Windows itself and buy for this update, or to buy and install
at least one Office application coming with this update, just to get
the support for more languages and scripts.
Some tools coming with Windows that are notoriously never updated
(except for security issues, but without any added functionality), is
all the internationalization libraries and support. This includes
system services like Uniscribe, GDI, codepages, or core fonts, or
basic applications like Notepad and Charmap.
However, sometimes, Uniscribe gets updated with a new major version of
Internet Explorer (I think that the last time this occured was with IE
6)... Non Microsoft applications are either built with the existing
Uniscribe engine, or are supplying and using their own one (for
example with Mozilla Gecko, Opera, or Apple Webkit engines) and don't
use Uniscribe at all.
My opinion is that Uniscribe should be updated along with DirectX
updates, with distribution licences also for display board drivers
(notably from AMD/ATI, nVdidia, Intel and SiS, as well as from PC
makers that are already distributing Windows licences), but that it
should be updated also independantly by users visiting the DirectX ,
MSDN, and Technet support pages. The need for better
internationalization support is general for all users and should not
depend on the version of Windows kernel services.
This is also severely limiting application developers in their market
for their own products and when building their websites (this
restricts the list of languages that can be correctly displayed in
Internet Explorer, even if many users are going with another competing
web browser not depending on Uniscribe).
2010/12/5 Doug Ewell <doug@ewellic.org>:
>
> Christopher Fynn <chris dot fynn at gmail dot com> wrote:
>
>> [You may also find that some Windows XP users need to update the version
>> of Uniscribe (USP10.DLL) in the \Windows\System 32\ directory.]
>
> It's not easy for ordinary users to figure out how or whether to update
> Uniscribe. Normally you have to install or update a particular application
> that happens to contains its own copy. Microsoft doesn't provide a
> straightforward "Update Uniscribe" page, or automatically push out a newer
> copy as part of regular updates — unless something has recently changed for
> the better.
>
> --
> Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
> RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ is dot gd slash 2kf0s
>
>
>
>
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