Is it possible to set ANSI encoding per application in windows

Question

Windows localization has a dialog that that set a locale for all applications that do not support Unicode, it looks something like this on xp similar on other flavors of windows:

Is there a way to specify this per app as apposed to globally for the entire os. Say I have 2 different ansi apps i want to run one in Russian and one in Chinese on the same machine, is that possible?

Answer 1

Microsoft once provided a freeware called Microsoft AppLocale . It allows executing apps with a different locale than the system's default. After setting up, you'll get a shortcut that runs your app via AppLocale.

There are two problems, however:

1. AppLocale is no longer supported and its download page is no longer available. You can download it from Softpedia though . I checked its digital certificate; Softpedia has not tampered with it.
2. Its installer may end with an error on Windows Vista and later. To install it successfully, you must open PowerShell (or Command Prompt) with administrative privileges, navigate to the folder containing apploc.msi and run it from there. ( Credit for discovering this goes to TechJourney .)

Answer 2

There's a free and open-source utility called Locale Emulator that can run other apps with a locale (code page) of your choice, other than the system default.

As of this writing, Locale Emulator claims to be compatible with Windows 10 version 1803 (which is the latest version of Windows).

Answer 3

The Microsoft AppLocale utility isn't compatible with Windows 10, in which case you can reach the same codepage default settings for non-UTF-8 applications as follows;

1. Start > Settings > Time & Language
2. Region & language
3. Related settings > Additional date, time & region settings
4. Region > Change location
5. Administrative tab
6. Language for non-Unicode programs > Change system locale...
7. Select your locale and then click OK, you will then need to restart

Apologies for the instructions going the long way around, but I figured if Micros, you should still bump in to the right settings