Find Tab in Windows Help Uses System Default Character Set

ID: Q182863

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows 98

SYMPTOMS

When you view the Find tab of a Windows Help file that uses a character set other than the system default character set on a computer with Multilingual Support and the appropriate keyboard layouts installed, you may experience the following symptoms:

The list of keywords may contain entries that appear as all question marks(?) instead of characters from the appropriate character set.

If you change the keyboard layout from the system default, text you typed into the "Type the word(s) you want to find" box may reflect the new keyboard layout, but not the new character set that corresponds to that keyboard layout. The system default character set is used.

When you type the words from the appropriate character set using the appropriate keyboard layout, the text you type may not match the keywords in the list.

Note that text on the Index tab is displayed correctly, and text you type into the "Type the first few letters of the word you're looking for" box on the Index tab is displayed in the correct character set.

For example, if a Windows Help file contains text using the Cyrillic character set (code page 1251) that has been properly compiled using the Windows Help Compiler, Cyrillic text is not properly displayed in the Find tab. When you view the Find tab, Cyrillic text is displayed as question marks and typing text into the "Type the word(s) you want to find" box displays extended ANSI characters instead of Cyrillic when the Russian keyboard layout is used. This occurs even if Multilingual Support and the Russian keyboard layout are properly installed.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the full-text search engine that provides the functionality for the Find tab in the Windows Help file does not implement National Language Support.

RESOLUTION

To work around this issue in the Pan-Euro version of Windows 95/98, reinstall Windows 95/98 into a new folder and configure the appropriate character set as the system default character set.

For example, to support Russian text, you can install the Pan-Euro version of Windows 95/98 into a new folder with Multilingual Support enabled, and you can set the Regional Settings to Russia during Setup. This sets the system default character set to code page 1251 (Cyrillic)

NOTE: This option is not available in U.S. version of Windows 95/98.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q141306
TITLE : How to Enable Support for Multiple Languages in Windows

ARTICLE-ID: Q135170
TITLE : Cannot Use Alternate Font Character Set in WordPad

ARTICLE-ID: Q150620
TITLE : Error Message Changing the Default Language

ARTICLE-ID: Q92422
TITLE : Help Fonts Must Use ANSI Character Set

Keywords : kbenv kbui win95
Version : WINDOWS:95
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb