Windows 3.11 International Settings Utility

In Microsoft Windows 3.11, the utility used to configure international currency, date, time, and number formats was the International applet, located within the Control Panel. This article explains the role of this utility, how users accessed it, the specific formatting options it provided, and how the operating system stored these regional preferences.

Accessing the International Utility

To configure regional formats in Windows 3.11, users navigated through the Program Manager:

  1. Open the Main program group.
  2. Double-click the Control Panel icon.
  3. Double-click the International icon (represented by a globe).

Configurable Formats and Features

The International dialog box allowed users to adapt Windows to the conventions of specific countries and languages. The primary configurations included:

  • Country: A drop-down list providing country-specific presets. Selecting a country automatically updated the default formats for currency, dates, times, and numbers.
  • Language: Specified the language used for Windows sorting orders and spell-checking tools in compatible applications.
  • Keyboard Layout: Allowed users to choose the corresponding physical keyboard mapping for different regions.
  • Date Format: Allowed customization of both Short Date (e.g., M/d/yy vs. dd/MM/yyyy) and Long Date formats, including separator characters, day/month ordering, and century display (leading zeros and four-digit years).
  • Currency Format: Provided controls for the currency symbol (e.g., $, £, DM), symbol placement (prefix or suffix), spacing, and negative number formatting.
  • Time and Number Formats: Permitted adjustments between 12-hour and 24-hour clocks, time separators, decimal separators (period vs. comma), and thousandths grouping separators.

Configuration Storage

When changes were made in the International dialog box, Windows 3.11 wrote these preferences directly to the WIN.INI initialization file under the [intl] section. Applications designed for Windows 3.1x referenced this section to dynamically format dates, timestamps, and financial figures according to the user's localized settings.