Unable to directly input unicode characters with diacritical marks into PuTTY on Windows 8

Question

After moving to Windows 8, I can no longer directly input unicode characters into PuTTY session window. Like ą, ę, ć, ń using Alt+<letter> with Polish (programmers) keyboard layout.

• I have Window -> Translation -> Remote character set set to UTF-8.

• Typing directly using the physical keyboard connected to the server works.

• And, what is strange, pasting a text with these letters into PuTTY works, too.

• The server is using UTF-8. Here, ąęółśćżźń is being pasted:

  m@debian:~$ echo ąęółśćżźń > x ; file x
  x: UTF-8 Unicode text
  m@debian:~$
  

• Pressing e.g. Alt+x, that normally renders ź, in PuTTY window results in a normal latin z. Here, żźżźżź is being pasted:

  m@debian:~$ echo żźżźżź | md5sum
  1ff31403a1089c590ed55d42cdcd0f3e  -
  m@debian:~$
  

  Here, żźżźżź is being typed:

  m@debian:~$ echo zzzzzz | md5sum
  cd519e63e450d863e5ee02814bae016d  -
  m@debian:~$
  

  And here, a plain zzzzzz is being typed:

  m@debian:~$ echo zzzzzz | md5sum
  cd519e63e450d863e5ee02814bae016d  -
  m@debian:~$
  

  Same sum.

• The only letter with a diacritic that is typable is ó (which is also present in latin1 charset).

• This same exact executable does work on Windows 7.

My guess is that Windows 8 is somehow deciding that PuTTY is unable to process typed (?) non-latin1 characters and it changes them on-the-fly to their latin1 counterparts.

What can be done?

Answer 1

Setting "Language for non-Unicode programs" as suggested in https://superuser.com/a/497880/214569 helped.

Answer 2

Accepted answer didn't work for me!

I had changed PuTTY's font previously. The only change that I needed was reverting it to Courier New (in Window -> Appearance).

Also choose 'UTF-8' in Window -> Translation.