Can't Change Default Language Setting

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

In Internet Explorer, pages with special characters, such as letters with
accents when I visit French pages, cannot load correctly. The proper
characters are replaced by Cyrillic ones.

When I go to IE's Tool menu, under Tools|Internet Options|Fonts, the
Language Script is set to "Cyrillic". Every time I change the setting to
"Latin based" and click OK and then OK once more to close Internet Options,
nothing ever happens. Pages still load with Cyrillic characters. Upon
returning to the Language Script setting, I find it is back to "Cyrillic"
rather than "Latin based" as though it never saved my change at all.

Recently I discovered that whatever is causing this problem is also
affecting special characters within MS Office applications. For instance,
when I wrote a Word doc while the language is set to French, spell check will
mark the words that have accents as wrong and the suggested spellings have
those strange Cyrillic characters in the place of the proper French
characters.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling IE. Upon contacting my computer
manufacturer, I was advised to try uninstalling all MS Office apps and then
try changing the IE settings, since MS Office language settings can override
IE language settings. This did not work. When the problem first presented
itself, I ran System Restores repeatedly to no avail.

I have run virtually all anti-virus programs in search of possible
infections, such as Norton, McAfee, Computer Associates, Panda Software,
TrendMicro, and others, and have come up PRISTINE clear every single time.

I've had this problem for months, and can not find a solution anywhere.
Please help me!

--
Myriam D.

I'm running:
Windows XP Pro SP2 (Embedded)
Internet Explorer 6
MS Office 2003
Microsoft AntiSpyware
McAfee Anti-Virus
Microsoft Office 2003 Desktop Language Settings (Add-In Tool which allows
one to change Language Settings for Windows and Office applications from one
convenient panel, which I installed a few hours ago)

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

And this is Microsoft Office related how???

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, PiXeL PiRaTe asked:

| In Internet Explorer, pages with special characters, such as letters
| with accents when I visit French pages, cannot load correctly. The
| proper characters are replaced by Cyrillic ones.
|
| When I go to IE's Tool menu, under Tools|Internet Options|Fonts, the
| Language Script is set to "Cyrillic". Every time I change the setting
| to "Latin based" and click OK and then OK once more to close Internet
| Options, nothing ever happens. Pages still load with Cyrillic
| characters. Upon returning to the Language Script setting, I find it
| is back to "Cyrillic" rather than "Latin based" as though it never
| saved my change at all.
|
| Recently I discovered that whatever is causing this problem is also
| affecting special characters within MS Office applications. For
| instance, when I wrote a Word doc while the language is set to
| French, spell check will mark the words that have accents as wrong
| and the suggested spellings have those strange Cyrillic characters in
| the place of the proper French characters.
|
| I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling IE. Upon contacting my
| computer manufacturer, I was advised to try uninstalling all MS
| Office apps and then try changing the IE settings, since MS Office
| language settings can override IE language settings. This did not
| work. When the problem first presented itself, I ran System Restores
| repeatedly to no avail.
|
| I have run virtually all anti-virus programs in search of possible
| infections, such as Norton, McAfee, Computer Associates, Panda
| Software, TrendMicro, and others, and have come up PRISTINE clear
| every single time.
|
| I've had this problem for months, and can not find a solution
| anywhere. Please help me!

 

[Bob I]

Perhaps you have Windows language set incorrectly. See Start, Settings,
Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. If that doesn't sort it
out you may want to post in the newsgroup for your operating system.

 

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

I've done that already, it doesn't solve my problem.
And I've posted my problem under 4 or 5 forums, no one has been able to help
me so far.

 

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

Like I said, the Spell Check tool of my MS Office apps have also been
"corrupted" by these Cyrillic characters. At first, I thought this was an
isolated incident affect IE only, but it's not, because the following
happened:

Yesterday I tried opening a Word doc but had a File Conversion dialog box
pop up, asking to me to select an encoding that would make the document
readable. I figured setting it to whatever the Windows Default was should be
fine. But when I clicked the radio button for "Windows (default)" all the
options on the scroll-down menu to the right where grayed out -- disabled, I
presume -- and the selected encoding stuck on "Cyrillic (Windows)".

That's when I started posting messages about my problem to Newsgroups. This
problem is now officially out of my range of expertise. I don't know if the
source of this problem is MS Office-based or more generally Windows-based,
but I'm trying everything. I hope this answers your question to your
satisfaction, Milly Staples.

(Incidently: I canceled the File Conversion. After choosing other encodings
and seeing that none of them made the document readable, I took a closer look
at the Preview. I figured out the person who gave me the file had saved the
extension as ".doc" when the file was in fact a PDF.)

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Open Control Panel, and then open your Keyboard icon. Check for the default
language there. Ensure is it English-US (if in USA) or your preferred
flavor.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, PiXeL PiRaTe asked:

| Like I said, the Spell Check tool of my MS Office apps have also been
| "corrupted" by these Cyrillic characters. At first, I thought this
| was an isolated incident affect IE only, but it's not, because the
| following happened:
|
| Yesterday I tried opening a Word doc but had a File Conversion dialog
| box pop up, asking to me to select an encoding that would make the
| document readable. I figured setting it to whatever the Windows
| Default was should be fine. But when I clicked the radio button for
| "Windows (default)" all the options on the scroll-down menu to the
| right where grayed out -- disabled, I presume -- and the selected
| encoding stuck on "Cyrillic (Windows)".
|
| That's when I started posting messages about my problem to
| Newsgroups. This problem is now officially out of my range of
| expertise. I don't know if the source of this problem is MS
| Office-based or more generally Windows-based, but I'm trying
| everything. I hope this answers your question to your satisfaction,
| Milly Staples.
|
| (Incidently: I canceled the File Conversion. After choosing other
| encodings and seeing that none of them made the document readable, I
| took a closer look at the Preview. I figured out the person who gave
| me the file had saved the extension as ".doc" when the file was in
| fact a PDF.)
|
|
|| And this is Microsoft Office related how???
||
|| --Â
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
|| reading.

 

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

When I double-click the Keyboard icon under Control Panel, the window that
opens has no tabs or options relating to language, only "Speed" "Hardware"
and "Key Settings". I have a Logitech Cordless Multimedia Keyboard.

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

What do you show in Regional Settings in Control Panel?

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, PiXeL PiRaTe asked:

| When I double-click the Keyboard icon under Control Panel, the window
| that opens has no tabs or options relating to language, only "Speed"
| "Hardware" and "Key Settings". I have a Logitech Cordless Multimedia
| Keyboard.
|
|| Open Control Panel, and then open your Keyboard icon. Check for the
|| default language there. Ensure is it English-US (if in USA) or your
|| preferred flavor.
||
|| --Â
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
|| reading.
||
|| After furious head scratching, PiXeL PiRaTe asked:
||
||| Like I said, the Spell Check tool of my MS Office apps have also
||| been "corrupted" by these Cyrillic characters. At first, I thought
||| this was an isolated incident affect IE only, but it's not, because
||| the following happened:
|||
||| Yesterday I tried opening a Word doc but had a File Conversion
||| dialog box pop up, asking to me to select an encoding that would
||| make the document readable. I figured setting it to whatever the
||| Windows Default was should be fine. But when I clicked the radio
||| button for "Windows (default)" all the options on the scroll-down
||| menu to the right where grayed out -- disabled, I presume -- and
||| the selected encoding stuck on "Cyrillic (Windows)".
|||
||| That's when I started posting messages about my problem to
||| Newsgroups. This problem is now officially out of my range of
||| expertise. I don't know if the source of this problem is MS
||| Office-based or more generally Windows-based, but I'm trying
||| everything. I hope this answers your question to your satisfaction,
||| Milly Staples.
|||
||| (Incidently: I canceled the File Conversion. After choosing other
||| encodings and seeing that none of them made the document readable, I
||| took a closer look at the Preview. I figured out the person who gave
||| me the file had saved the extension as ".doc" when the file was in
||| fact a PDF.)
|||
|||
|||| And this is Microsoft Office related how???
||||
|||| --ÂÂ
|||| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||||
|||| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|||| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted
|||| without reading.

 

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

Under Control Panel|Regional & Language Options, I see:

Tab #1: Regional Options
Standards & Formats: English (US)
Location: Canada
Tab #2: Languages
Text services & input language:
Details:
Tab #1: Settings:
Default input lang.: English (United States) - US
Installed services: EN English (United States) Keyboard
US;
ES Spanish (Colombia)
Keyboard Spanish
Tab #2: Advanced:
Compatibility Configuration: (box is checked)
System Configuration: (box is UNchecked)
Supplemental language support:
Install files for complex script.......: (box is unchecked)
Install files for East Asian languages: (box is unchecked)
Tab #3: Advanced
Language for non-Unicode programs: English (United States)
Code page conversion tables: many different languages are checked,
including Cyrillic ones that are in grey so I can't change them
Default user account settings: (box is checked)

 

[paulgor]

..
I don't think the two issues you listed are related, because
I do know about #1 - problem in browser:

1) When you see Cyrillic instead of French on a Frenc site it is NOT
because of the Tools/Options/Fonts menu item.
Unlike Mozilla, there is NO such thing in Internet Explorer as
"default encoding"

2) The common reason for such problem is an View/Encoding/Auto-Select
option in IE - it's known to be buggy, it often 'detects' erroneously -
when a page does NOT specify its encoding (you should give us an
URL of such French site) - show Turkish instead of Russian or your case
You need ot UNcheck that option - should help

3) Then what is that visual 'problem' you described about Cyrillic
being first item in Tools/Options/Fonts?
It's nothing really. It's just a menu with several items that let
a user to choose a font for an item, say I choose "Greek" from
the drop-down list and change the font to say "Arial".
That is, whatever item of many that is showm in that one-line
'window' of that drop-down list, has NO effect on anything -
one item from the list has to shown, right? Does NOT matter which -
in your case that option offers you
_to change fonts_ for Cyrillic, so what? You can instead change fonts
for Greek

So please ignore that - it has no functionality behind it.

Again, there is no "default language/encoding" in IE.


As of your Office problem - who knows may be unchecking "Auto-Select"
in IE would help to sove that, too...

--
Regards,
Paul Gorodyansky
"Cyrillic (Russian): instructions for Windows and Internet":
http://RusWin.net
Russian On-screen Keyboard: http://Kbd.RusWin.net

 

[PiXeL PiRaTe]

Other complications developed (unrelated to the previous problem), which led
me to just format my hard drive and start over. So far the problem has not
returned. But thanks anyway.