Microsoft KB Archive/177749

= How IIS 3.0 Handles Client Language =

Article ID: 177749

Article Last Modified on 6/23/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0

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This article was previously published under Q177749



We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. IIS 6.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx



SUMMARY
This article explains:


 * How Internet Information Server (IIS) handles the HTTP "Accept- Language" field
 * Why the client may be unable to access to the IIS Web Site if its language setting matches the name of an IIS virtual directory.



MORE INFORMATION
The Accept-Language http field allows the client browser to specify the list of "preferred" languages. For instance if you select Danish with the Regional Settings Control Panel tool, for each HTTP request Internet Explorer will add "Accept-Language = da in the HHTP packet. This allows the Web Server to customize the response based on the client language.

When IIS receives the request Accept-Language field, IIS tries to see if the "Accept-Language" virtual directory exist. If yes, then IIS modifies the query and adds the language to the URL.

A sample is shown below. In this sample, the IIS Web Server has two directories defined:


 * Home -> C:\Inetpub\WWWROOT
 * Virtual directory named da -> C:\Danish

First Request
Client language: Danish

Client request: GET /yyyy.htm Accept-Language = da


 * 1) IIS receives the request : GET /yyyy.htm Accept-Language = da
 * 2) IIS processes the language and checks if a virtual directory named "da" exists.
 * 3) The "da" virtual directory exists. So IIS modifies the request from GET /yyyy.htm to GET /da/yyyy.htm.
 * 4) IIS tries to return the /da/yyyy.htm page. If c:\Danish\yyyy.htm does not exist, an error message is returned to the client.

Second Request
Client language: Italian.

Client request: GET /yyyy.htm Accept-Language = it


 * 1) IIS receives the request : GET /yyyy.htm Accept-Language = it
 * 2) IIS processes the language and checks if a virtual directory named "it" exists
 * 3) In this case the "it" virtual directory DOES NOT exist. IIS does not modify the request.
 * 4) IIS tries to return the /yyyy.htm page.

This feature allows IIS to return "localized" pages to the client. The drawback is that all pages must be duplicated for each language virtual directory.

Keywords: KB177749

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