Non-Invasive User Interface Translation

A novel application of function hooking is presented, allowing software that runs on Windows and uses the MFC/Win32 API to have its user interfaces translated without modifying the original application or requiring access to source code. A launcher is used to run the target executable, loading it into the launcher’s address space and allowing the launcher to hook into functions that display text in the user interface. These functions then transparently replace original text with the translated version and call the original function. The method is effective, with no measurable runtime overhead, but visual imperfections remain due to differing lengths of text and potential numerical translations. Although in principle the translation can be performed at runtime, slow performance and unreliable results made this untenable.