Where is the Dictionary for spelling checking?

When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm planning
to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do different
programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be great if there
was just one central one which we could back up and use as reference all the
time. With so much slang and proprietary language being used more and more
these days this is getting more and more important.

Hi, Inter Hagel.

Substitute your own username for "RC" in this filename:
"C:\Users\RC\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof\lang0409.lex"

This is for your Custom Dictionary in WLM. If you are using a language
other than en-US, you will need to change the number in the filename, too.
(0409 hex is 1033 decimal, the code for this location.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message
news:O1#...
> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do
> different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be great
> if there was just one central one which we could back up and use as
> reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language being
> used more and more these days this is getting more and more important.

What is your operating system ?

--
...winston
ms-mvp mail

"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message news:O1#...
> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm planning
> to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do different
> programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be great if there
> was just one central one which we could back up and use as reference all the
> time. With so much slang and proprietary language being used more and more
> these days this is getting more and more important.
>

"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message
news:O1#...
> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do
> different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be
> great if there was just one central one which we could back up and use as
> reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language
> being used more and more these days this is getting more and more
> important.

Any additions you make to the WLMail dictionaries are stored in simple text
files called lang####.lex, where #### is a four-digit hex number
representing the locale ID (LCID) for the language concerned. You'll find
the files in %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof. You can see which language is which
at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx
which tells you for example that English(UK) has LCID 2057, or 0809 in hex,
so the user dictionary for English (UK) is called lang0809.lex. If you have
a word list (from somewhere else, like Office, for example) you can always
just add it (in Notepad) to the appropriate .lex file to make those
exceptions available in WLMail.
--
Noel

Sorry - should have included that in the original. XP SP3 32 bit.

> What is your operating system ?

>> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
>> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
>> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do
>> different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be
>> great if there was just one central one which we could back up and use as
>> reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language
>> being used more and more these days this is getting more and more
>> important.

>> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
>> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
>> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And do
>> different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be
>> great if there was just one central one which we could back up and use as
>> reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language
>> being used more and more these days this is getting more and more
>> important.
>
> Any additions you make to the WLMail dictionaries are stored in simple
> text files called lang####.lex, where #### is a four-digit hex number
> representing the locale ID (LCID) for the language concerned. You'll find
> the files in %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
> Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof. You can see which language is
> which at
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx
> which tells you for example that English(UK) has LCID 2057, or 0809 in
> hex, so the user dictionary for English (UK) is called lang0809.lex. If
> you have a word list (from somewhere else, like Office, for example) you
> can always just add it (in Notepad) to the appropriate .lex file to make
> those exceptions available in WLMail.

Thanks - found it.
So is this dictionary used solely for Windows Live Mail functions and
nothing else?
If so, doesn't it make sense to have one for WLM, Word Processing and
everything else?
Then back it up along with the rest of your stuff? Is it possible to
centralize dictionaries?

"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message
news:...
>>> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
>>> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
>>> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And
>>> do different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be
>>> great if there was just one central one which we could back up and use
>>> as reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language
>>> being used more and more these days this is getting more and more
>>> important.

>> Any additions you make to the WLMail dictionaries are stored in simple
>> text files called lang####.lex, where #### is a four-digit hex number
>> representing the locale ID (LCID) for the language concerned. You'll
>> find the files in %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
>> Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof. You can see which language is
>> which at
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx
>> which tells you for example that English(UK) has LCID 2057, or 0809 in
>> hex, so the user dictionary for English (UK) is called lang0809.lex. If
>> you have a word list (from somewhere else, like Office, for example) you
>> can always just add it (in Notepad) to the appropriate .lex file to make
>> those exceptions available in WLMail.

> Thanks - found it.
> So is this dictionary used solely for Windows Live Mail functions and
> nothing else?
> If so, doesn't it make sense to have one for WLM, Word Processing and
> everything else? Then back it up along with the rest of your stuff? Is
> it possible to centralize dictionaries?

That would be possible in an ideal world, but there are so many
applications with varying degrees of spell-checking capability that getting
their producers to agree on a common format and placing for a user
dictionary is a long long way into the future. There are questions like
text encoding - eg. ANSI or Unicode - and undoubtedly many others. Office
seems to use one global exceptions dictionary unless you do something
special to create another one, whereas WLMail at least segregates word
lists for different languages. Be thankful that both Office and WLMail use
plain text files for their user dictionaries, so you at least have the
option to copy words from one to the other. Some apps use binary files...

I don't know whether there's a way to replace a text file, say
lang0809.lex, with a shortcut to another one, called say custom.dic (which
is the default Office one). Perhaps an OS guru could suggest a method.
--
Noel

Yes...WLM maintains its own separate file vs borrowing from a different application.
Maybe...not all systems may have another application installed performing spell checking
Yes...back it up with the rest of your stuff
No....afaik centralizing is not an option, but not sure if anyone has posted success or failure in doing so.


--
...winston
ms-mvp mail

"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message news:...
> So is this dictionary used solely for Windows Live Mail functions and
> nothing else?
> If so, doesn't it make sense to have one for WLM, Word Processing and
> everything else?
> Then back it up along with the rest of your stuff? Is it possible to
> centralize dictionaries?
>

That used to be the case in WLM's ancestor Outlook Express. It used the
proofing tools installed by Office products and which were also shared
by the Works products.

However, several years ago Microsoft started going away from that. I'm
guessing Microsoft wanted to develop the proofing tools without having
to coordinate things across the product line.

Works starting with version 7 got its own private proofing tools.

And Outlook Express is not compatible with the Office 2007 proofing
tools. Installing Office 2007 breaks the Outlook Express spell
checker.

So WLM got it's own private proofing tools. They happen to be built on
proofing tools used by Office 2000 to 2003. Now Microsoft can make
changes in Office without breaking WLM.

--

Mike - http://TechHelp.Santovec.us



"Inter Hagel" <> wrote in message
news:...
>>> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary
>>> for spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as
>>> I'm planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it
>>> is? And do different programs use different built in dictionaries?
>>> It would be great if there was just one central one which we could
>>> back up and use as reference all the time. With so much slang and
>>> proprietary language being used more and more these days this is
>>> getting more and more important.
>>
>> Any additions you make to the WLMail dictionaries are stored in
>> simple text files called lang####.lex, where #### is a four-digit hex
>> number representing the locale ID (LCID) for the language concerned.
>> You'll find the files in %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
>> Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof. You can see which language is
>> which at
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx
>> which tells you for example that English(UK) has LCID 2057, or 0809
>> in hex, so the user dictionary for English (UK) is called
>> lang0809.lex. If you have a word list (from somewhere else, like
>> Office, for example) you can always just add it (in Notepad) to the
>> appropriate .lex file to make those exceptions available in WLMail.
>
> Thanks - found it.
> So is this dictionary used solely for Windows Live Mail functions and
> nothing else?
> If so, doesn't it make sense to have one for WLM, Word Processing and
> everything else?
> Then back it up along with the rest of your stuff? Is it possible to
> centralize dictionaries?

>>>> When I compose a message in Window Live Mail it uses a dictionary for
>>>> spelling which I can add to. I'd like to back this thing up as I'm
>>>> planning to reinstall the OS soon. Does anyone know where it is? And
>>>> do different programs use different built in dictionaries? It would be
>>>> great if there was just one central one which we could back up and use
>>>> as reference all the time. With so much slang and proprietary language
>>>> being used more and more these days this is getting more and more
>>>> important.
>>>
>>> Any additions you make to the WLMail dictionaries are stored in simple
>>> text files called lang####.lex, where #### is a four-digit hex number
>>> representing the locale ID (LCID) for the language concerned. You'll
>>> find the files in %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
>>> Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Proof. You can see which language is
>>> which at
>>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx
>>> which tells you for example that English(UK) has LCID 2057, or 0809 in
>>> hex, so the user dictionary for English (UK) is called lang0809.lex. If
>>> you have a word list (from somewhere else, like Office, for example) you
>>> can always just add it (in Notepad) to the appropriate .lex file to make
>>> those exceptions available in WLMail.
>>
>> Thanks - found it.
>> So is this dictionary used solely for Windows Live Mail functions and
>> nothing else?
>> If so, doesn't it make sense to have one for WLM, Word Processing and
>> everything else?
>> Then back it up along with the rest of your stuff? Is it possible to
>> centralize dictionaries?
>
> That used to be the case in WLM's ancestor Outlook Express. It used the
> proofing tools installed by Office products and which were also shared by
> the Works products. However, several years ago Microsoft started going
> away from that. I'm guessing Microsoft wanted to develop the proofing
> tools without having to coordinate things across the product line.
> Works starting with version 7 got its own private proofing tools.
> And Outlook Express is not compatible with the Office 2007 proofing tools.
> Installing Office 2007 breaks the Outlook Express spell checker.
> So WLM got it's own private proofing tools. They happen to be built on
> proofing tools used by Office 2000 to 2003. Now Microsoft can make
> changes in Office without breaking WLM.

Wow - thanks for the breakdown. So does that mean that WLM and the latest
Office still do not share dictionaries but use the same protocol in how they
operate?