Unable to open some files. what's Windows file name character set?

[Zephir]

Hi!

I have some files which file names are outside the Windows-1212/ISO-8859-1 character set/code page which I am unable to open with a program I use.

I contacted the company who makes the program and I was told that's because the file name contains non-Unicode characters.

My feeling is more than the file name is indeed in a flavor of Unicode (most likely UTF-16 of UTF-8) and the file open call they use only supports Windows-1212/ISO-8859-1 (the program has no trouble opening files with accents for example).

Now what's interesting is the VLC is able to open those files without problems...

Which character set is supported by VLC in its file open call under Windows?

Thank you!

Nick

[jman98]

This is what you think you told us:

My car has a problem. When I put on the brakes, I hear a terrible squeal and I smell a burning smell. It seems to me I'm not able to stop as well as I once did. I am not sure, but I think my last brake job was 5 years ago.

This is what you actually told us:
I have a problem with my car but I'm not going to tell you what it is. However, I expect you to fix it.

Provide a LOT more details or don't get help. Your choice.

[Zephir]

You know that I actually provided a lot more info than you're example suggests...

If you are not able to reply in a constructive way, please don't bother replying...

I'll add this though which you are right I did forget to mention, the reason why I suspected the character set is that the prompt I get telling me it can't open the file (it doesn't find it) replaces all the unrecognized characters by questions marks which is something some programs do when they can't recognize the character set...

[davexnet]

Why don't you just rename the file with valid characters?

[johns0]

What type of files are you trying to open and what program is it that you contacted the authors?Sounds like video but we need more details as to what they are.

[NoBuddy]

Have the same problem with opening image files in XnView if their filenames are japanese.
You can add more language charsets to windows, but as davexnet already suggested: just rename the files.

I guess, jman98 never stumbled over this issue, that's why he didn't understand the problem

[usually_quiet]

Hi!

I have some files which file names are outside the Windows-1212/ISO-8859-1 character set/code page which I am unable to open with a program I use.

I contacted the company who makes the program and I was told that's because the file name contains non-Unicode characters.

My feeling is more than the file name is indeed in a flavor of Unicode (most likely UTF-16 of UTF-8) and the file open call they use only supports Windows-1212/ISO-8859-1 (the program has no trouble opening files with accents for example).

Now what's interesting is the VLC is able to open those files without problems...

Which character set is supported by VLC in its file open call under Windows?

Thank you!

Nick

You failed to say which program(s) were unable to open the problem files.

NTFS stores file names in Unicode (UTF-16), but FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 file systems used the OEM character set for filenames. The current Windows API has support for Unicode, but some programs, particularly older ones that were created for older version of Windows that didn't use NTFS, don't support the use of Unicode characters in file names, or only support the use of short file names.

It looks like VLC uses UTF-8 http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Unicode

[Zephir]

Why don't you just rename the file with valid characters?

Because in the language it's written in, these are valid characters and VLC and similar programs (I tried 3 others) have no problem opening the file...

[Zephir]

What type of files are you trying to open and what program is it that you contacted the authors?Sounds like video but we need more details as to what they are.

Video files and I kinda didn't want to give the name of the company since I don't think these guys are bad guys but they are just misinformed but it's the AVS4YOU stuff (player, converter, etc...)

[Zephir]

Have the same problem with opening image files in XnView if their filenames are japanese.

Yep, you most likely have the same problem, looks like some programs by default only have support for the Windows 1252/ISO-8859-1 character sets (which doesn't support Japanese)...

You can add more language charsets to windows, but as davexnet already suggested: just rename the files.

I would much rather try to convince them to fix their program (which I am pretty sure would most likely not be that difficult to do, they are probably not opening the files with a call that supports Unicode...).

[Zephir]

[You failed to say which program(s) were unable to open the problem files.

That was on purpose as I said above. These guys are usually pretty responsive to inquiries but this time they just seem to be misinformed...

NTFS stores file names in Unicode (UTF-16), but FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 file systems used the OEM character set for filenames. The current Windows API has support for Unicode, but some programs, particularly older ones that were created for older version of Windows that didn't use NTFS, don't support the use of Unicode characters in file names, or only support the use of short file names.

It looks like VLC uses UTF-8 http://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Unicode

Thank you, that's the kind of info I am looking for... Their programs are kept updated so the problem is most likely some legacy stuff they still have in it...

[Cornucopia]

I agree with usually_quiet's assessment, however jman98 has a point: if you REALLY want to get to the bottom of this, you have to give more info.

Such as: Your version of Windows, what code pages you have installed, what filesystems these reside on, excerpts of the ACTUAL filenames (or even small copies of the files themselves, zipped and uploaded), and yes, if you have even a minor problem with a set of apps, we would need to know the apps to know whether that occurs elsewhere or not...

See what I mean?

Scott