NLS files (XP Home SP1)

[viking33]

While rummaging around in the Windows/System32 folder, I noticed that there were 55 files in there with the extension .nls. They were like "c 1254.nls" etc. and were mostly 65/66k in size, with a few 160/193k. All had the same date stamp of 8/23/xx? Opening them with a hex editor, showed a few lines of misc code and the rest were zeros.
Any idea what they are and are there dependencies to other programs? Can I "dump" them?
I could rename a few to see what if anything is affected, I suppose, but I would rather know what they are first.
Curious,
Bob

[DaveA]

I have the same files on ALL of my systems with the same time stamp of "8/23/2001 12:00 PM", which in my book means keep your hands OFF.

Edit
Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....snanls_8x6b.asp and scroll down and you will see a list of these files.

[viking33]

You are probobly right , Dave, but I still would like to know what they are? Maybe a little digging around the MS site will turn something up. I'll post it if something worthwhile is found.
Bob

[DaveA]

Did you check out the link I posted above? <img src=/S/devil.gif border=0 alt=devil width=15 height=15>

[viking33]

Yes I finally did go to that link. It seems to be that they are international language conversion files. Primarily from old IBM EPSIDIC formats to another language. Don't know how often (or if) they are actually used by the average user, but I suppose it's best to leave them in just in case. I think it's a case of MS trying to be all things to all people.
I am really from the "old school" when programmers were supposed to clean up their code before release, instead of finalizing a lot of bloated code.
<img src=/w3timages/censored.gif alt=censored border=0>
Bob