A method, system and program are disclosed for validating the generation of globalized versions of software programs. The directory structure of an installed software program is traversed to discover resource files containing globalized strings. The values of the globalized string and its corresponding key in the resource file are then used to generate a unique key, formatted to identify the location of the globalized string. The locale supported by the globalized string is determined and the unique key and the globalized string value are appended to a corresponding locale table. A globalized string value that causes the failure of a globalization test for a predetermined locale is identified. The corresponding locale table is then searched for the failed globalized string value. Once found, the unique key for the failed globalized string value is retrieved to identify the location of the defective globalized string and perform predetermined remedial actions.