title: .NET: Getting the en-HK culture (or any custom culture) on Azure App Service
body: <p>I have a web application currently running in Azure Cloud Services (web role) on the <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/cloud-services-guestos-update-matrix/" rel="nofollow">latest Guest OS</a>. On this guest OS, the culture en-HK is available. The cultures available on this Guest OS seem to be similar to those available on my Windows 10 developer machine (400+ cultures, reflecting Microsoft's move to the Unicode CLDR-style culture support). That is, this OS seems to be "up to date" with respect to cultures.</p>
  
  <p>I have another web application deployed as a web app running in Azure App Service. There, the en-HK culture is <em>not</em> available, and a dump of all available cultures shows that only around 200 cultures are available (roughly the ones I used to see on my old Windows 8 developer machine). That is, the OS in which the web app in the Azure App Service is running seems "outdated" with respect to culture availability.</p>
  
  <p>I can run code with administrator privileges in the Cloud Service, but I <em>cannot do so</em> in the App Service, so I can't register a custom culture either (even with hacks like <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms404375%28v=vs.100%29.aspx" rel="nofollow">this one</a>).</p>
  
  <p>So far I haven't been able to find any documentation about what kind of operating system Azure App Service runs on, and what the update process there is.</p>
  
  <p><strong>My question(s):</strong> is there any way to find out if and when the newer cultures like en-HK will be available for .NET code running in Azure App Service? Or am I missing some configuration option for App Service that lets me choose a more "up to date" OS with "fresher" cultures (I've already selected .NET 4.6, but I don't think that has much to do with it)? It doesn't have anything to do with the pricing tier, does it?</p>