On 18/10/08 14:52, kev wrote:
> Having performed a minimalist reinstall of Windows, by default the system
> only has the English/Latin character set installed. At first I didn't notice
> this, but as I visited more and more pages in Firefox, I noticed lots of
> placeholder characters (FF uses a grid of 0s and 1s) where there should have
> been international characters (e.g. East Asian pictographs). On the previous
> install I believe these character sets were installed through a prompt in
> IE. But so far I haven't used IE on this install and would like to keep it
> that way. Is it possible for Firefox to make these prompts and have the
> character sets installed?
>
>

The problem is not with Firefox, it's with Windows. What you should do
is install appropriate fonts for whatever character sets you want to
display. I have quit Windows in favour of Linux, but I seem to remember
that such fonts used to be available on the Windows Update site, as part
of "language packs" for whichever Windows version you are currently
using (assuming that it isn't so obsolete that all language packs for it
have been removed from the Windows Update site).

A word of caution: Maybe you know it, but repeating it does no harm: the
Windows Update site _must_ be visited with Internet Explorer, not
Firefox (or with the IE Tab extension in IE mode, which is actually
Internet Explorer running in a Firefox tab).

Avoiding IE in general is good, but avoiding it so much that you never
install Windows updates is overdoing it. Whenever Windows publishes
security & stability upgrades to whatever version you're running, you
should install them, even if it means running a short IE session for the
purpose of visiting the Windows Update site. I believe restricting IE
(or IE Tab in IE mode) to visits to the Windows Update site is actually
the lesser of two evils compared to never upgrading Windows because
doing it requires using IE.

Of course, if you can find appropriate fonts (for whichever non-Latin
language you're using) from other trustworthy sources than the Windows
Update site, then IE is probably not needed to install them: IIRC, just
dropping them in your fonts directory is enough. (Maybe there are some
on your Windows Install CD?)


Best regards,
Tony.
--
You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
be dead.