Applied Computer Systems

Questions marks can appear within Double Byte Character language variants of SoftLINK

Download PDF:  KB0217

Summary
When installing one of the language variants of SoftLINK that uses double byte characters (such as the Arabic language variant) onto for example an English operating system, where you would expect to see Arabic text within the SoftLINK Application you will instead see Question marks. The reason for this is that the Operating System setting for the Language for non-Unicode programs will be set to English and so will not contain the required character set. This means that when a character cannot be found within the current System Locale such as an Arabic double byte character, it will be replaced by a question mark (?) within the SoftLINK Application instead.

Details
In order to resolve this issue you will need to change the System Locale setting under the Language for non-Unicode programs from the currently set language to the Language variant of SoftLINK you have installed.

For example if you have installed the Arabic variant of SoftLINK onto an Operating System set to use English as its System Locale you will need to change the System locale to Arabic and this will then correctly display the text with the SoftLINK Application.

The System locale setting will be found in the following location:

Windows 7

  1. Open the Control Panel
  2. Open the Region and Language settings
  3. Select the Administrative tab
  4. Under the Language for non-Unicode programs section click the {Change System Locale…} button
  5. Select the required language
  6. Click Ok to apply this – Note a restart will be required

Windows 88.1

  1. Open the Control Panel
  2. Open the Region settings
  3. Select the Administrative tab
  4. Under the Language for non-Unicode programs section click the {Change System Locale…} button
  5. Select the required language
  6. Click Ok to apply this – Note a restart will be required

Once the Locale has been changed to include the required double byte character set to match the language variant of SoftLINK installed, the next time you run SoftLINK you will find that the language will be displayed correctly and there will no longer be any question marks visible.

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