Program doesn't show lang signs

[123qwer]

Greetings.

I've got a certain problem with a program. Unfortunately, it doesn't show proper Cyrillic signs. Or to be exact, it messes up font by showing questions marks and other illegible signs (at least for me).

I came into possession of this program by e-mail and in the beginning it had a .txt extension. A guy who sent it to me told me to rename the file so that it has an .exe extension and assured me that then it would work properly.

The program's interface uses Russian language, namely Cyrillic. And, unfortunately, it doesn't want to show the signs. I tried to change Windows' input language into Russian (I'm using Windows Vista with English MUI), but sadly it doesn't help. All I see are questions marks and few strange characters. It affects the program and its install interface (InstallShield Wizard) as well.

Thus the question - is it possible that Windows by changing an extension somehow affected program's character encoding? And if yes, then is there any way to repair it?
I don't really know much about this encoding stuff, but then again I thought that by changing a Windows' input language I should be able to see Cyrillic signs.

I would vastly appreciate help regarding this nuisance, namely what to do so that the application shows those damned Russian sings.

 

[TFT]

Thus the question - is it possible that Windows by changing an extension somehow affected program's character encoding? And if yes, then is there any way to repair it?

The reason it was sent to you in as a "txt" extension is he changed the extension before sending it as some firewalls / email programs will refuse to accept an "exe" file because of security issues. Your Email program accepts it as a text file and you then change the extension back to an executable. It will not mess with the program doing this.

I don't really know much about this encoding stuff, but then again I thought that by changing a Windows' input language I should be able to see Cyrillic signs.

I'm not sure on this one but I thought you had to download a language pack from Microsoft for this to work and I believe a licence is required. This will install the fonts needed.