[gzread]

How do Linux and Java do it, when you want to compile your program in both 16-bit char and 8-bit char mode? Oh that's right, you don't.

You can pick one or the otherfor Windows too, so don't ask me why it's done that way. It was originally so you could compile for both the new hotness Unicode, and the old compatible ASCII.

[projektfu]

Partly because Microsoft resisted UTF-8 forever, and so using the ANSI/multibyte strings didn't therefore give you modern functionality. Why they didn't implement Unicode for Win95, I'm just not sure. If they had, the only reason to compile an ANSI version would have been to target Win32S (Windows 3.11).

Or, they could have implemented a UTF-8 code page for Win32 as soon as it was available and then most software could just use byte strings.