Code Pages On Microsoft Windows

Code Pages On Microsoft Windows

A code page is a mapping between values stored in memory and the symbols they represent. On MS-DOS systems (prior to Windows) the code page was what today is called the OEM code page. At the time, the common code page (Code page 437) contained many box-drawing characters which were used to simulate a GUI in MS-DOS. It did not contain sufficient accented letters to support many European languages.

With the advent of Windows, it was decided that a new code page with those box-drawing characters replaced by accented letters was required (Windows-1252). However, since most existing applications were MS-DOS and might depend on cp437, the existing code page could not be replaced. Hence, the concept of ANSI code pages and OEM code pages was created. ANSI code pages are used by Windows and its applications. Despite its name, ANSI code pages are not endorsed by the American National Standards Institute. OEM code pages are used by MS-DOS.

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