IIS 6.0: Unicode Characters May Not Display Correctly on FTP Sites (332093)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Information Services version 6.0

This article was previously published under Q332093

SYMPTOMS

When you view a file on a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site that is hosted on Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 and that contains Unicode characters in the file name, the file name may not display as expected.

If you try to download the file, you may receive one of the following error messages:

In Microsoft Internet Explorer:
my^test: File not found.
From a command prompt:
550 my^test.doc:The system cannot find the file specified.

CAUSE

For security reasons, certain characters cannot be used in file names. When Unicode characters are used, they are converted to the closest ANSI equivalent that is available in the code page of the server operating system. Certain Unicode characters that do not have exact ANSI equivalents may be replaced with one of these disallowed ANSI characters. To prevent these disallowed characters from appearing in the file name, these characters are converted to a caret (^).

RESOLUTION

If possible, avoid Unicode characters in file names that are used on an FTP site. If Unicode characters must be permitted, only use those that have a direct equivalent (one-to-one mapping) to the server code page.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	4/16/2003
Keywords:	kbpending kbprb KB332093