[RESOLVED] detect user country from regional settings

[BruceG]

Hello there -
I've searched around but can't find a clear answer for this. From my winforms VB2010 app, I'd like to be able to detect the country of the user's PC at runtime. Specifically, all I really need to detect is whether the user is in Australia or Canada.

Most things I've seen will say "have a look at System.Globalization.CultureInfo", but with no clear example. I also know that the old-school "GetLocaleInfo" API can be used for this as well. I do have some code using the latter, which detects Australia when LOCALE_ICOUNTRY returns a value of 61. However, that won't work for Canada, as it returns 1, which is the same as USA (I know that these are based on telephone country codes).

Anyway, ideally, I'd like to be able to use the .NET Globalization class to detect both - but if I have to use the GetLocaleInfo API that's fine - I'll take what I can get - at the very least, I'd like an example of how I can detect Canada.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated ...

[formlesstree4]

Why not just have the program ask? I guess if you want to try and do it automatically, that's fine but is there a problem asking?

[BruceG]

The app has to do it automatically (without user intervention), as it sets various labels and formats based on country.

[formlesstree4]

Maybe using an IP address to verify the location? I know there are various sites that allow you to do a location check via an IP address...but that seems too hard. Perhaps timezone checking?

Do you need to only worry about Canada and Australia, or are other countries included as well?

[BruceG]

I only need to worry about Australia and Canada for the moment. Again, I'd like to do it through the PC's regional settings. I do have the old-school code to detect Australia, but as stated before, that same code is no good for Canada, as it shares the same country code with the US.

[formlesstree4]

Well, the only option you could suggest is making a notice asking when it detects the US country code, to ask if they're in Canada as well. What exactly is this application supposed to do anyway?

[Nightwalker83]

Not sure if this will be of any use.

Edit:

I found this which might give you some more information on the subject.

[BruceG]

Nightwalker - you were on the right track. With further research, I came up with my solution:

Select Case System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.ToString
    Case "en-AU"
        ' this is Australia
    Case "en-CA", "fr-CA"
        ' this is Canada
End Select

I found the list of culture names here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...fo(VS.80).aspx

[Nightwalker83]

Nightwalker - you were on the right track. With further research, I came up with my solution:

Glad I could be of some help. Also, to mark a thread resolved you need to edit the the title of the first post rather than the current post.