Cmd.exe and command.com - special characters on windows 7

Question

When I start cmd.exe on windows XP and do this:

1. łłłłąłąłłł [enter]
2. command.com [enter]
3. asdfgąłś [enter]
4. exit [enter]
5. łąśś [enter]

Everything works as intended. But when I do the same thing on windows 7, this is what happens:

1. łłłłąłąłłł [enter]
2. command.com [enter]
3. asdfg [enter] //ąłś no longer available
4. exit [enter]
5. lass [enter] //łąśś appears as lass, from now on cmd.exe has no special characters available.

Does anyone know what is happening here? Why win7 behaves in this strange way? Is there anything I can do about it?

Answer 1

To correctly handle this characters, you need a specific pagecode. You can test which pagecode it is with chcp command.

If you start command.com (the 16bit DOS command processor) that pagecode can change, and when you exit from command.com the pagecode will not be the same. Try

chcp [enter]
command.com [enter]
chcp [enter]
chcp [enter]
exit [enter]
chcp [enter]