Convert windows-1252 to utf-8 on Windows

Tried to find out how to convert windows-1252 code files to utf-8 without messing up Norwegian characters today. Couldn’t really find anything good other than linux tools and php stuff. Finally, *facepalm*, I remembered it might be possible using Notepad… And sure enough, seems to work great. Just open up the windows-1252 encoded file in Notepad, then choose ‘Save as’ and set encoding to UTF-8.

Hopefully I won’t forget this the next time I need it… *sigh*

How to change or remove file extensions in Windows

Say you have a bunch of files and you want to quickly change or remove the file extension of all of them. Turns out that’s very simple to do with the command-line in Windows. I had no idea…

Change

ren *.old *.new

Will change all files with ‘old’ file extension to have the ‘new’ file extension.

Remove

ren *.old *.

Will remove the ‘old’ file extension.

Simple!