Goodcoin Posted October 22, 2008 Report Share Posted October 22, 2008 It's an old and well-known problem and I have little hope it will be ever resolved, but still...For those who are new in business: Code page 866 is a Cyrillic code page, used in Russian versions of MS-DOS. Nowadays it has very limited use, but it still has. Namely, it's used by Windows XP and Vista to address issues with legacy, non-Unicode software. When you choose Russian as the Language for non-Unicode programs in Regional and Language Options, the system defaults to code page 866, so that the programs with non-Unicode UI could be able to show the Cyrillic text properly.Now the problem is that many Unicode supporting programs also become affected by the code page 866. Namely, all the non-standard letters, like á, é, ü, ï, ò and so on, become replaced by Cyrillic ones. In the attached image you can see just one example, showing how Windows Media Player displays Russian ц instead of German ö in the word Mitternachtslöwe.Unfortunately, I have to use Russian as the language for non-Unicode programs and therefore I'm stuck with the CP866. I know it's a long shot but maybe there any way to deal with this mess? AFAIK, the code page cannot be changed dynamically, but maybe there's some trick to that? It would be nice, if I could just switch CP866 on only when I need it and keep the standard code page for general use.Shortly, any sparks of thoughts are welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted October 22, 2008 Report Share Posted October 22, 2008 I know the problem; I had 'Japanese' specified for a long time as language for non-Unicode programs, and I use a lot of European accented characters.There is no real way around it, except to get rid of such legacy programs. This is the world of Unicode now (and we took a very long way to come here!), and I finally have no more legacy applications - I am free B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodcoin Posted October 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2008 I know the problem; I had 'Japanese' specified for a long time as language for non-Unicode programs, and I use a lot of European accented characters.There is no real way around it, except to get rid of such legacy programs. This is the world of Unicode now (and we took a very long way to come here!), and I finally have no more legacy applications - I am free B)Unfortunately, that's not an option for me. Here in Georgia (ex-USSR) Russian software is still widely used. Problem is, that many Russian softmakers ignore Unicode support entirely, building even the new programs without Unicode support. Especially, there is a problem with simple TXT help files and readmes -- without CP866 most of them is an unreadable gibberish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodcoin Posted October 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2008 OK, I think it's better to change the language for non-Unicode programs to English and try to explore the other possibilities. To hell with the software UI -- I rarely use outdated Russian software, anyway, as well as the new one without Unicode support. The TXT files are the main problem which bothers me. So maybe it's better if I just install some sort of code page converter to convert the text dynamically. Any advice on that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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