How to make Unicode charset in cmd.exe by default?

Doctor Coder picture Doctor Coder · Jan 1, 2013 · Viewed 100.3k times · Source

866 charset installed by default in Windows' cmd.exe is poor and inconvinient as compared with glorious Unicode.

Can I install Unicode by default or replace cmd.exe to another console and make it default so programms use it instead of cmd.exe?

I understand that chcp 65001 changes encoding only in the running console. I want to change charset at the system level.

Answer

VerteXVaaR picture VerteXVaaR · Aug 26, 2013

After I tried algirdas' solution, my Windows crashed (Win 7 Pro 64bit) so I decided to try a different solution:

  1. Start Run (Win+R)
  2. Type cmd /K chcp 65001

You will get mostly what you want. To start it from the taskbar or anywhere else, make a shortcut (you can name it cmd.unicode.exe or whatever you like) and change its Target to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /K chcp 65001.