Incoming mail encoding OL 2003

[Loco Russo]

I just installed OL 2003 and having problems with reading messages in
Russian.

The general problem is that historically Russian has at least 3 code tables
that are being used now. So besides the language, you need to specify
encoding (code table). If message contains character set info in the
header, everything works fine. But some mailers used in Russia do not
specify it. All they say "8bit" in the best case.

In previous versions of OL and in OE there is a place where you can specify
default encoding for incoming messages. But this is not the case in OL
2003. I couldn't find such setting. It's gone in 2003. At least it's not
where it used to be. So messages are often displayed as garbage if the
character set info is missing.

This is not really a problem with older OL versions, because you always can
use "View->Encoding" and select one that is correct. But in 2003 this
function for some reason does not work for me. I can open incoming message
and select any encoding at all, but the characters DO NOT change.

My system in US version of Win XP pro SP1 and Office 2003. Russian is added
as second language in windows and IE.

I spent almost a day experimenting, but couldn't figure it out. And MS help
as usual useless.

Any help from the experts?


Thanks

Steve Yeager.