Dusty and I are collaborating on an FAQ for doing floating-point arithmetic using the Evaluate.vbs script I posted some weeks ago. Among the VBS functions this can access is one CALLED FormatCurrency. This takes a value and displays it as a currency value, i.e. the local currency symbol as defined in Control Panel, that is, $ (dollar) £ (pound), € (EURO) etc, followed by the value expressed with 2 decimal places. Although my local currency is the UK pound, I could only get values showing with a dollar sign. A Google search reveals that this is a known problem, and AFFECTS VBScript and JScript in Vista Service Pack 1, Server 2008, and XP Service Pack 3. Currency and other locale-specific formats such as date, time, etc may not be displayed correctly.

There is a Microsoft Hotfix, KB951978, and you can read about the problem and download the right fix for your OS here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951978

There was no need to reboot afterwards on my XP SP3 system.

I daresay most English language users will be unaware of this issue, since the only such countries that do not use the dollar sign (that I can THINK of) are the Irish Republic and Great Britain. (Of course it would affect English speaking expats living in non-dollar-using countries who have SET the currency symbol to the local one.) However, for the sake of accuracy I felt it desirable to make this known.

Thanks for sharing this fact.