(Russian as System Default Locale; Cyrillic as System Code Page)
Full Russification (Cyrillic becomes System Code Page)
lets you see normal Cyrillic letters
in
WARNING. This page is devoted to the pretty complicated issues
(for example, Russia-made programs just were not designed to work under a non-Russian Windows that is confirmed by the vendors as well as by Microsoft, but you still want to use them).
Therefore unlike all other pages of my site (devoted to Russian fonts, keyboard, browsers/mail, etc.) this pagehas to contain a lot of technical details about Windows OperatingSystem - it's just necessary to do while talking about Full Russification.So, do not read this page unless you really face such an issue, that is, you need to use some Russia-made program under your non-Russian version of Windows or use some files with Russian names on a CD-ROM, etc.
There are two methods (described below) that may solve the problem
with some Russian program
without changing System Code Page, but it's a rare case.
There are no such solutions at all for the names of files and
Full Russification is not a simple thing
(so don't be surprised by the size of this explanation page),
it's a deep (and often dangerous), system-level
tune-up of Windows Operating System:
Cyrillic becomes a
Note. Microsoft: about changing System Code Page.
As you can read in the documentation of your
(unlike Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer where one can do it via Control Panel).
All other sections of my site"Cyrillic (Russian): instructions for Windows and Internet" (about fonts, keyboard, browsers, e-mail, MS Word, etc.) are about user-level tune-up that allows you, under, say,U.S. English version of Windows, to read and write in Russian in editors and word processors, in browsers, send/receive e-mail, etc.
But user-level tune-up does not allow, under such version of Windows, to use, say, Russian version ofMS Word ; to work with Russian file names on some music CD-ROM, etc.
These things require system-level tune-up explained below.
Here is an example where Cyrillic initially is a
Here are some examples where Cyrillic is not a
So, what's the difference? The main difference is that under
a Windows where Cyrillic is not a
Note. Unlike multi-lingual fonts(.ttf, user-type fonts such as "Arial") ,system-dependent fonts (bitmap fonts, .fon files such as "MS Sans Serif") contain symbols of only one character set, only symbols ofSystem Code Page. That is, if System Code Page is, say, "Western European", then .fon files contain only Western European letters and, unlike "Arial" or
"Times New Roman" , do not contain, say, Russian, Polish or Greek letters.
Likewise, if "Cyrillic" is a System Code Page (f.e. in Russian Windows 95), then system-dependentfonts (.fon such as "MS Sans Serif") contain only Cyrillic letters and English letters (more accurate: not just English, but ASCII symbols. ASCII is included into everyfont/code page in the world)
but do not contain, say, accented Western European letters, Polish, or Greek.
As it was described in first section of my site,
Cyrillic support on a user-level
is an activation of Russian keyboard layout and an activation of Cyrillic
part of large multi-lingual,
(Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer has Cyrillic in these fonts initially, so no activation
is needed.
After such user-level activation of keyboard and fonts,
Russian works fine in user documents:
in editors and word processors such as
But Russian still doesn't work in the system-dependent places such
as file names or the situations where system-dependent fonts
Simple example: U.S. English Windows 95 where a user installed a localized,
made for Russia, version of
Here is a summary list of the situations when a user faces problems with Russian due to the fact that
Cyrillic is not a
For example, my friend who lives in Los Angeles, brought from his trip to Moscow a pretty famous Russian program called WebTranSite(vendor - very well known company ProMT), to use it for English-Russian translation.
He called me to complain that he cannot even install this program because Russian was not readable in the messages and dialogs of the installation process.
I contacted the vendor and they told me the same thing described above: the program was intended to work ONLY under a Russian version of MS Windows!
Below you'll find two methods mentioned at the top of this page
that may
If a method helps, then you don't need to take a risk of changing your
Operating System so dramatically.
(reminder - there are no such methods for solving
problem with Russian file/folder names)
Method 1. For the problem with inputting Russian in some program
If a program does have an option for the
Here are some examples:
So, if some program does not let you input Russian text, then try to find
a
Note. Some programs do allow you to choose a working font, but
they don't know how to work with new multi-lingual Unicode fonts such
as "Arial",
(modifications are shown usually either via the list offonts -
"Arial (Western)", "Arial (Cyrillic)", etc.
or via the list of Scripts for afont - one can choose "Cyrillic" in the 'Scripts' list for "Arial")
or
they may show such modifications but it does not
It means that this program can work only with older,
I do offer a download of such fonts (free ones that I found on the
Method 2. For the problem with inputting Russian in some
program that does not let you change working system-dependent
font and/or for the problem with Russian program where you cannot see
Cyrillic in the
In some (relatively rare) cases a program does not have inside a hard-coded
Instead, such program looks what font is specified as
So, you may want to try the following:
Start/Settings/Control Panel, click on "Display", select
"Appearance" and change the font specified there
(it's what is called a System Font)
for all Items (Icon, Menu, Message Box, etc.).
Before you change it, please write down what font and what size is specified.
Usually it's
Change the font for all items to some Cyrillic font, for example,
Important! You should realize that after such change all Windows applications will look differently with this new system font and its size, so it's not a harmless change.
If you don't like the new environment, then change it back by selecting the original font and size inControl Panel/Display.
If the above change of system font in Control Panel/Display to a Cyrillic
one does not help, then you may want to try another Cyrillic
as it was mentioned above in Method 1 paragraph, some programs just can not use
Unicode fonts.
If either Method 1 or Method 2 has helped you, then
you don't need to read
Note. You can perform Full Russification either usingWindows-own tools or some 3rd party program such as "Chameleon", ParaWin, CyrWin.
These programs will be covered below, but now I want to make clear that all the problems and negative side effects associated with Full Russification and described in this section, are present despite the way you do Full Russification, i.e. 3rd party programs are not better in this regard.
If you desperately need something from the above list
(work with Russian program, file names, etc.) and you are ready to take
a risk and change System Code Page, then check first if it's harmful
for your existing configuration:
as I wrote above, if you change System Code Page, you may see that
Why I wrote 'non-English'? Because nothing bad can happen to English being it a file name or
an interface item such as a program's menu:
English alphabet letters are part of any Character Set in the
For example, there are no German or French letters in Cyrillic Character Set, but all English
letters are there.
Here is an example of a possible troublesome situation:
if your original System Code Page was "Western" and you worked
with programs that have accented German letters in the
Same with file/folder names - if you had, say, German files and/or folder(directory)
name, then they will be unusable after you change System Code Page to Cyrillic.
Note, that file/folder names situation is not related only to
system-dependent fonts. No, these names depend on many (often unknown
to people outside Microsoft development team) things related to
System Code Page.
Warning!
It's extremely dangerous to perform a Full Russification
(make Cyrillic a System Code Page), if your Windows is not an English one,
but a
(it's easy to see that whether your Windows is English or
In such localized Windows names of system folders/directories can also be
non-English and they become unusable if you perform Full Russification.
I read in Newsgroups and forums, for instance, about a folder
say, it was a localized Windows, where this folder name contained some
accented Western-European letters
(that, unlike English, are not present in Cyrillic character set).
If you make Cyrillic a System Code Page, this folder becomes unusable for
Operating System. Windows will try to re-create this and other 'lost' folders
and it will be a disaster!
One more example - if you perform Full Russification for a German version of
after Full Russification system has TWO folders:
new one with a name Startmenu, and original
one with the same name, BUT the last letter is not
'u', it's
Now system, when you press Start button, does not show you all the items
because many items are in the original folder (where name ends with
You may try to fix that problem - by copying everything from an original folder
(where name ends with
that is go to a parent folder
C:\dokumente und Einstellungen\<user-account>,
find there these 2 folders we are discussing and copy everything from old to new.
Another example - for French Windows: a user had French Outlook Express there, worked fine
with incoming e-mail. But after he changed system code page, he does not see anymore
any of incoming letters, just empty Inbox.
It's because a word "Inbox" in French has accented French letters and, as it was mentioned above,
bad things happen to such letters in the interface of a French program...
Just remember that there WILL be problems during Full Russification if you use
New information for Windows XP only
All described above (i.e. I can make Cyrillic my System Code Page and my Russian non-Unicode program will work now, but if I have say German program, then it stops working) was known to Microsoft...
And finally in the Spring of 2003 they announced a free utility that is to solve this problem.
The utility does the following under Windows XP:
- For instance I have English or German Windows XP. I also have a Russia-made program that does not work, i.e. unreadable Cyrillic during the installation and/or in its interface (menus, dialogs).
Instead of dramatically changing Windows itself by making Cyrillic my System Code Page, I can use this new utility that creates a specialenvironment - for that Russian programonly - where Cyrillic is kind of'system code page' - Same can be done in the opposite scenario - if I have Russian Windows XP and want to run some German program, that utility will prepare a special environment for the German program where
'system code page' will be"Western, 1252" The utility is called AppLocale while I think more correct name would've been AppCodePage.
You can download this utility while visiting the page devoted to AppLocale: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13209
or you can use direct download link: http://download.microsoft.com/download.../apploc.msi
That is, under Windows XP you should try AppLocalefirst - because it's 100%safe - before trying to change System Code Page which could be dangerous for non-English systems.I personally did not try that utility, but have read that many found it useful.
Some found it not completely error-free, they tried it but did not get 100% desired results (I translated a quote from Russian forumAs far as I understand the above is described in the Readme file of AppLocale.RU-Board ):
"I tried AppLocale. It does not work 100% correctly.
For example, on a German Windows XP I tried to run several
Russian programs using AppLocale, and the result was:
half interface text - in normal Russian as desired, but the other
half - gibberish or ||| symbols (in the same program!).
I also tried - on Russian Windows XP - to use AppLocale to run
German program Grammatik Trainer Deutsch. It requires German input.
AppLocale did not help - I still saw Russian letters instead of German...
For example, it says,
"5.0 Known Issues"
...
a) "- 16-bit application are not supported by AppLocale."
(which means very old, made for Windows 3.1 programs)b) "- Even after applying AppLocale some of the application's user interface might not render properly. This should not cause any functionality breaking and it is related to the application's specific way of handling non-Unicode data."
If you have read all of the above and found it feasible to do such deep-system change then see how it is done.
The method of changing System Code Page (Full Russification) differs a lot between
and
Below are two separate instructions - one for Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer;
Note. In these instructions I do not mention external
programs-Russificators such as
CyrWin
or ParaWin.
First, as in other parts of my site, I deliberately avoid to offer any programs
(for instance, for Russian keyboard). Instead, I provide instructions
of how to use Windows-own tools.
It's my personal preference - most of my readers are novices and I am afraid that
they will not be able to troubleshoot if something goes wrong with such program
or they run into a side-effect that many programs have.
Moreover, all programs-Russificators that I saw or heard of, do not
provide a complete return to the original non-Russian configuration of Operating System
(for example, even after the Uninstall of ParaWin, the system is still partly
Russified, ParaWin leaves a Cyrillic environment even after I remove it, system-dependent
fonts are still Cyrillic, etc.)
For instance, I've received a letter from a Turkish reader who suffered from
such program-Russificator. He wanted very much to be able to use CD-ROM with
Russian music where file names were in Russian.
I told him that this CD was not meant to work under his Turkish environment
and that I don't recommend even trying to do Full Russification of his
But he decided to try and found a Russification program (I did not heard about
it before) called "Chameleon",
where authors promised that it will be possible to get back original non-Russian
configuration.
So, he used the program and it made Cyrillic his System Code Page, it
performed Full Russification. He was able then to use this Russian CD.
Later he decided that he needs his Turkish environment back, because now he needs
to work with the files that have Turkish names.
But Chameleon changed the environment from Russian to Western
This poor man now can not work with his own Turkish files and there is no
way for him to make "Turkish" a System Code Page.
If he had Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer, then it would not be a problem,
but under
That is, a change of System Code Page is a dangerous task and a user need to think twice before doing so. Also, it shows how dangerous it may be to use a Russification program.
Here are the instructions for the Full
It's not hard to perform a Full Russification
(change a system code page) under these, modern versions of Windows.
Also, it's not hard to get back original non-Russian configuration.
That is, I can make Cyrillic a system code page to work with some Russian program,
and then change the settings back without any side effects.
Warning. Problems may occur only with the non-English names of files and folders.
For example, initially you had "Western" as system code page and had some files/folders
with accented German letters in their names (English does not have such issue).
When you make "Cyrillic" your system code page, you will not be able to work
with such files.
Moreover, you may accidentally corrupt these files while in the
as I heard some system utilities such as Scandisk or Norton disk utilities
may corrupt file/folder names if these names contain letters that do not belong to
system code page.
Same can happen with Russian file/folder names - you make Cyrillic a system code page,
create some files/folders with Cyrillic letters in their names, then switch back
to the original "Western" configuration and there you may accidentally
corrupt these Russian files/folders and they become unusable when you switch to Russian mode again.
To perform a Full Russification under Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer, that is,
to make Cyrillic your System Code Page, follow my short instructions
Note. During the change explained below, keyboard settings will not be altered. That is, if initially inControl Panel/Keyboard/Input Locales you had "English" as aDefault Input Locale , then it will remain so.
This is a good thing - it is not recommended to make Russian keyboard layout a Default: if you make Russian your Default, then you may face serious problems duringLogin - usuallyUser ID and Password contain latin letters and you will not be able to input them if your keyboard is in Russian mode.
Windows NT 4.0. How to change System Code Page
Important! To be able to make such system-level change, you must login to Windows as a system Administrator(has to have Administrative Privileges).
On home computers it's not an issue - an owner is always anAdministrator :) but at work it could be an issue.
By the way, during this step Windows removes existing, say, "Western"
system-dependent
It's one of the reasons it asks for CD-ROM - to copy Cyrillic .fon files from there.
Now you can see Russian in file/folder names,
in the interface of a Russian program (its menus, dialogs, etc.).
By the way, if that is all you need and you don't want to see Russian in dates,
names of months and weekdays, etc., then you can now, having Russian as
All locale things (month name, etc.) become U.S. English ones as they were initially while Cyrillic is a system code page now!
Windows 2000. How to change System Code Page
Important! To be able to make such system-level change, you must login to Windows as a system Administrator(has to have Administrative Privileges).
On home computers it's not an issue - an owner is always anAdministrator :) but at work it could be an issue.
There are two steps here to choose Russian as your System Default Locale (thus making Cyrillic your System Code Page):
Now you can see Russian in file/folder names, in the interface of a Russian program (its menus, dialogs, etc.).
By the way, if that is all you need and you don't want to see Russian in dates,
names of months and weekdays, etc., then you can now, having Russian as
All locale things (month name, etc.) become U.S. English ones as they were initially while Cyrillic is a system code page now!
Windows XP/2003. How to change System Code Page
Important! To be able to make such system-level change, you must login to Windows as a system Administrator(has to have Administrative Privileges).
On home computers it's not an issue - an owner is always anAdministrator :) but at work it could be an issue.
Now you can see Russian in file/folder names, in the interface of a Russian program (its menus, dialogs, etc.).
Windows Vista. How to change System Code Page
Important! To be able to make such system-level change, you must login to Windows as a system Administrator(has to have Administrative Privileges).
On home computers it's not an issue - an owner is always anAdministrator :) but at work it could be an issue.
Now you can see Russian in file/folder names, in the interface of a Russian program (its menus, dialogs, etc.).
Windows 7,8. How to change System Code Page
Important! To be able to make such system-level change, you must login to Windows as a system Administrator(has to have Administrative Privileges).
On home computers it's not an issue - an owner is always anAdministrator :) but at work it could be an issue.
Now you can see Russian in file/folder names, in the interface of a Russian program (its menus, dialogs, etc.).
The above instructions were for Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer.
Below - Windows 95/98/ME instructions.
Here, unlike Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and newer, it's very hard, risky and often just impossible for a novice to perform a Full Russification (make Cyrillic your system code page).
To be more specific, it may be possible to do it as a one-way ticket, that is, to change system code page forever, but what often is not possible is a return of an original non-Russian configuration, especially if it was not "Western".
If initially you worked with programs where in the interface you had, say, German, or
Polish or Turkish, etc. letters and/or had the same in file/folder names, then you need
to think twice before starting to change system code page:
first, now these programs and files become unusable and second, it's problematic
that you can safely get back the original non-Russian configuration.
My personal opinion: under Windows 95/98/ME you should not
perform a Full Russification, it's too dangerous.
I'd like to underline one more time that these programs with Russian interface
and/or these files with Russian names that you want to use so badly that you are ready
to take a risk and change your Operating System so dramatically,
just were not designed to work under your Windows! Their authors
assumed that they will be used only under a Russian version of Windows.
Below you'll find some methods of Full Russification (make Cyrillic a system
code page) for
I never did it myself and will not be able to answer your questions if
something goes wrong.
If you have questions, then please ask the authors of these methods and not me.
Below are 3 methods of changing System Code Page
under
Note. As far as I know this method is available only for
So, if you have Windows 98/ME where you did not do much yet (or know how to save
your stuff somewhere else) and you desperately need to perform a Full Russification
to work with Russian programs and/or files, then Microsoft offers a method of
changing system code page by a
As you can see in MS documentation (you have this text even on your C: drive, I guess,
in Readme.txt), one can not change system code page under
Microsoft writes that under Windows 98/ME it can be done only
during the installation of Operating System
(
by choosing a Custom installation and then selecting Region=Russia, etc.
This method (how to choose a System Code Page during installation)
is described in Intl.txt file on your
By the way, if that is all you need and you don't want to see Russian in dates,
names of months and weekdays, etc., then you can now, having Russian as
All locale things (month name, etc.) become U.S. English ones as they were initially while Cyrillic is a system code page now!
Under Windows 98/ME this method lets you change System Code Page from "Western"
to "Cyrillic" without complete re-installation of your system.
It also works for Windows 95.
Method by K.Kazarnovsky is not a program-Russificator.
It's a package of native, Windows-own tools, files, and settings.
It also includes Cyrillic system-dependent Bitmap
This method is mostly for advanced users who know Operating System
(say, know what system.ini and win.ini are,
I read very good responses from people who used this
But again, I did not try it myself, so do it at your own risk.
Author does not communicate in English, so if you don't know Russian, you will
not be able to ask him questions.
You must read first the Readme files written by the author, read
all his Warnings.
For example, here is what he wrote (my translation) in a Newsgroup
(same warning is also present in his Readme files):
From: Konstantin Kazarnovsky Newsgroups: microsoft.public.ru.russian.windows,microsoft.public.ru.win98 Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 3:01 AM Subject: Codepage change for Win'9x/ME... > ... > As usual - a Warning: as any other Full Russification method/tool made for > * Windows 9x/ME *, mine is also recommended to use either as a one-time thing - > to make Cyrillic a system code page forever > or in some exceptional cases. > Otherwise you definitely loose access to the files with national names, > they will be corrupted. > > For example, on my test U.S. English Windows ME machine, where I used it > not as a one-time thing, I've run into the troubles: > 1) I used my own method and made Cyrillic a System Code Page. > Created some files with Russian names > 2) Then I tried to reverse the changes and made "Western" a System Code Page > again. > 3) Then I tried to switch to Cyrillic configuration once more > But system haulted during re-start and I started scandisk ... > My system was in "Western" mode before the re-start and all my files with > Russian names have been corrupted forever by scandisk and became unusable >
Warning! As it was already mentioned, it's extremely dangerous
to perform a Full Russification (make Cyrillic a System Code Page),
if your Windows is not an English one, but a
In such localized Windows names of system folders/directories can also be
non-English and they become unusable if you perform Full Russification.
For instance, folder "Programs" under such localized Windows
could had a name with accented Western-European letters
(that, unlike English, are not present in Cyrillic character set).
If you make Cyrillic a System Code Page, this folder becomes unusable for
Operating System. Windows will try to re-create this and other 'lost' folders
and it will be a disaster!
So, if you are ready to take a risk and badly need a Full Russification of your
Warning. The method is reversible, but
it allows you to go back only if you had "Western" as System Code Page.
So if initially your Sysetm Code Page was, Polish or Greek or Turkish, etc.
then this method will not let you go back to the initial configuration
after you make Cyrillic a system code page.
Again, K.Kazarnovsky does not offer any program-Russificator.
It's a package of native, Windows-own tools, files, and settings.
It also includes Cyrillic system-dependent Bitmap
The size of that package is about 700k.
When you open .zip file-archive of that package please look at Readme.txt first.
Make a copy of your present system setting files (system.ini, win.ini, etc.) before you apply the method.
You can download the package (.zip file-acrhive) from the author's Main site or Mirror site (Mirror site is much faster):
"Russification"
page
See there a section
"Russification"
page
See there a section
I'd like to stress one more time that I personally never used this method,
so please, do not ask me about the method or about the
There is an older, well-known instruction for Windows 95 provided by
"Russian Team Windows 95: Russification FAQ"
(I have a copy of this instruction:
"full95.htm").
But it's probably no reason to read it - K.Kazarnovsky's method is much easier to
use, it's automatic settings method, while the instruction of
The only case when this
a user knows Operating System extremely well and the original configuration
of her/his system was not "Western", but, say, Turkish or Polish.
This user makes Cyrillic a System Code Page (for example, by using
K.Kazarnovsky's method) and then later wants to reverse the
change and get back the original non-Russian (and non-Western) configuration.
Then the text of Russian Team Windows 95 may help him to figure out how to do it:
they describe in details how to make Cyrillic a System Code Page, so this advanced
user may be able to do the same for her/his language, say, Polish
(assuming, s/he copied somewhere original files of that Polish system before making
it Cyrillic at first place).