Okay this is a WORK AROUND and not a fix:
from Microsoft Knowledge Base Article – 283807:
Quote:
Note that in some cases you may also be able to resolve this problem by manually editing the registry. For example, if the28591 String value is missing from the following registry key, a Web page that is encoded for the Western European (ISO) code page might not display any images:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Nls\CodePage
The value for this registry key should be set to the name of the appropriate code page file in your Windows\System or Windows\System32 folder. For the Western European (ISO) code page, this value should be either Cp_28591.nls (Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition) or C_28591.NLS (Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP). For additional information about the character sets that are supported by Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d…ts/charset4.asp
Hmmm…could it be that Cp_28591.nls is what’s corrupted? But I replaced ALL my .nls files from system disk so I suspect the file is not corrupt.
My Workaround:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Nls\CodePage\28591
double click 28591 and replace value data CP_28591.nls with CP_1252.nls close regedit and reboot.
All works fine. But that does not satisfy me completely. I feel that some thing/one did this in an illegal way. I’ll send a report to microsoft next week if this work around holds.