Why Internet Explorer doesn't url-encode the u

Question

I launch the IE (7th version) as follows:

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" "http://somewhere.com/q=фыва"

except that "фыва" part is replaced by "????" in cmd.

When IE boots up, it displays the expected url in address bar, but if I take a look at the actual traffic, ???? is sent (3f3f3f3f). I expected it to url-encode it (and actually, it does url-encode spaces to "%20").

Is there a way to make it send the proper data to server?

Answer 1

Unicode characters are forbidden in urls see

Unicode characters in URLs

% encode the unicode chars yourself to - http://somewhere.com/q=%D1%84%D1%8B%D0%B2%D0%B0

its probably removing them as a feature