>> The file that is being read is non-UNICODE
Does that mean its just an ASCII file? In other words, are the characters 8 bits and are all characters below 0x7F? Is there a code page associated with the written text in the INI?

>> I suppose I can use the 'mbs' family of functions ... for various operations ... for UTF-8.
Not really. The MS-CRT does not support UTF8. What you have to keep in mind is that "MBCS", as windows uses the term, is for support of pre-Unicode character sets (code pages) - mainly for Asian languages. MBCS isn't really for new applications unless you specifically need to process text in a pre-Unicode encoding such as Shift-JIS.

>> The idea is to develop a back end engine which is internationalized (supports English and Japanese (kanji)) and is cross-platform (runs on Windows, Solaris and Linux).
Well, I still don't understand where the international text is coming from. If it's not coming form the INI, then where?

gg