Site Specific Encoding Prob in IE6 sp1

[jazzman279]

I've recently begun having a problem when I access certain sites (Microsoft, ESPN, Weather Channel among others). The fonts display as Times New Roman and most images do not display (lots of red x's). After much fiddling, I found that if I right click on the page and click on Encoding, I see that these sites are Western Europe ISO. If I change it to Western Europe Windows, the site displays fine. The change is not persistent so every time I go to a new page, I have to repeat the fix. I have turned on Auto-Select on this menu with no effect.

I've searched Microsoft's website (repeating the process above many times in the process) with no success. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[Steven.Bentley]

You can set the default encoding in Tools>Internet Options, I think it'll be under font but I can't remember where it is on the PC version

[jazzman279]

I've ransacked Tools>Internet Options from top to bottom. I went through it one more time just to see if I missed something. I can't find any setting there to manage the Encoding.

I don't know if this will help -- I'm running Win98 and IE version 6.0.2800.1106IS and I've applied the following patches: sp1, Q313829, Q324929, Q810847, Q813951, Q813489, and Q818529.

Help! One of the probem sites is a secure site that won't allow the workaround. Every time I update the encoding it makes me resend the page and I lose the change.

[Miz]

Take a look at the last three posts on this page. They seem to have found a solution to the problem you're having.

[jazzman279]

Good news first....the problem is solved. Bad news is I'm not absolutely certain what fixed it.

Upon reviewing my options and trying the less intrusive suggestions, it became evident that reloading Windows was going to be my next option. Rather than reload Win98, I decided to upgrade to XP. After several hours of upgrading drivers, BIOS and utility software on my Thinkpad (as recommended by IBM), I kicked off the XP upgrade CD. No luck. It wouldn't read the CD past the opening menu.

After rummaging through Microsoft's website, it appeared that my CD-ROM is not supported in XP so my upgrade strategy was kaput. Then I realized, that I had been using the Microsoft website with no problems (see my original post). I checked the other previously problematic websites and they too were no longer a problem.

Theory: One of the utilities I updated was the IBM Thinkpad Configuration Utility. I believe this installation restored the Western Europe (ISO) character set on my PC but I can't tell for sure.

Regardless, my problem is solved -- so thanks for the help!

[Steven.Bentley]

thanks for the update