Skype for PocketPC Sucks!

My Dell Axim x51v uses Windows Mobile 5 as OS, and older version of Skype for PocketPC could not run on that platform. Although there was a alpha version of Skype that support WM5 released on the forum last year, it was not very stable and was not fully functional.

Last month, Skype finally released the verion 1.2.0.89 which officially support WM5 platform. However, since I speak Traditional Chinese, I set the language option to "Chinese (Traditional)", but the UI messages were actually in Simplified Chinese, except for the starting screen. When I changed the language option to Simplified Chinese, I got the Traditional Chinese ones. Although this is not a big deal, I mailed this error to Skype.com. But I got neither any reply nor any fixed new version.

Today, I occasionally visited the Skype website, and found that new 2.0.0.39 version of Skype for PocketPC is available. I downloaded and installed it. Since I set my language option to "Chinese (Simplified)" in the 1.2.0.89, the 2.0.0.39 uses that as UI language setting. After some check, I though the language error had been fixed, and I switched the language option back to "Chinese (Traditional)." Do you think that things all go well this time? Absolutely not! Skype refused to switch language and poped up an error message said that my system does not support the language I select. What the hell this could be happened? Skype for PocketPC Sucks!

Well, although the UI refused to change language, this does not mean that I can not change it by myself. After some digging into the Skype's configuration files, I found that the UI language setting is actually recorded in the "shared.xml" at "\Application Data\Skype." The configuration file is in XML format, and the language option is the integer value of the "" element which is a sub-element of the "" element. But the question now is, what is the value for Traditional Chinese? After some trial-and-error runs, I found that "1" is for Traditional Chinese. After modified that value to 1, I got my Skype for PocketPC in Traditional Chinese!