Double-byte character set (DBCS) characters are corrupted when you use the Research pane to search for documents on a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site

Consider the following scenario. You add a Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site to the Research service in a Microsoft Office 2003 program, such as Microsoft Office Word 2003. Then, you use the Research pane to search for documents on the portal site that contain double-byte character set (DBCS) characters. In this scenario, documents that contain DBCS characters are returned in the search results in the Research pane. However, the DBCS characters that appear in the Research pane are corrupted. You cannot read the DBCS characters in the title and in the description of the documents that are listed in the Research pane.

This issue occurs because SharePoint Portal Server 2003 converts XML code that is returned by the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Search service to the Unicode UTF-8 encoding format. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 performs this action to avoid having XML characters that are not recognized in the XML schema. DBCS characters that appear in the Research pane of the Office 2003 program are corrupted because the Research service does not decode the UTF-8-encoded information.

This problem was first fixed in a hotfix that is now contained in a service pack. If you installed the latest SharePoint Portal Server 2003 service pack, you do not have to install the hotfix.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3.To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for SharePoint Portal Server 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
After you install the service pack, follow the steps that are listed in the "How to enable the hotfix" section of the article to set the EncodeQueryWebServiceXMLWithSpace registry key and to activate the hotfix.

Hotfix information

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 post-Service Pack 2 Hotfix Package that is dated June 16, 2006. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to enable the hotfix

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

1. Quit SharePoint Portal Server 2003.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then click to select the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Sharepoint Portal Server
4. After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type EncodeQueryWebServiceXMLWithSpace, and then press ENTER.
6. Right-click EncodeQueryWebServiceXMLWithSpace, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

After you enable this hotfix, the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Search service replaces XML characters that are not recognized in the XML schema with space characters instead of converting the XML characters to the Unicode UTF-8 encoding format.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

This problem was first corrected in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3.