http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese/Displaying_Chinese_Characters

Windows Vista

Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista displays Chinese characters properly without any configuration.

For program written in non-Unicode, go to Control Panel --> Regional and Language Options --> Administrative tab --> Language for non-Unicode programs, set it to whatever Chinese language you want.

Windows XP

If Chinese characters don't display properly for you, first check if you need to install East Asian language support files. To do this:

1. Click Start > Control Panel. Select the Date, Time, Regional and Language Options category, then click Regional and Language Options.
   
2. On the Languages tab, select the checkbox labeled Install files for East Asian languages.
   
3. Click OK when a dialog box appears informing you of the storage requirements for the language files (230 MB).
   
4. Click OK on the Languages tab.
   
5. Another dialog box appears requesting a Windows XP installation disk or network share location where the language support files are located. Insert a Windows XP installation CD or browse to the appropriate network location, and click OK. Microsoft Windows installs the necessary files and prompts for you to restart the computer.
   
6. Click Yes to restart the computer.

Windows 95, 98 or ME

In order to display Chinese characters properly, you need to download two packages from Microsoft.

If you don't have Office XP:

1. Go to this Microsoft site.
   
2. Select Chinese (Simplified) - with Language Pack in the dropdown box.
   
3. Click Go.
   
4. Download the file scmondo.exe, open it and follow the instructions.
   
5. Do the same for Chinese (Traditional) - with Language Pack and then tcmondo.exe.

If you do have Office XP:

1. Download this file and this one from Microsoft.
   
2. Execute imechs.exe.
   
3. Follow the instructions.
   
4. Do the same for imecht.exe.

Mac

Linux

"Mozilla Firefox appears to have no difficulty in displaying the characters." There is no chinese fonts installed in my lab linux computers, which firefox can not display normal chinese encoding.