>A workaround is to use MODIFY FILE, then use the Format/Font menu to change the font's charset to Cyrllic. Apparently, VFP remembers this change by logging the file name and its font choice to the open FOXUSER resource file. Now, whenever I open a file called russian.txt, VFP uses the font settings I had previously used for this file.
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>So, one solution is to ship a pre-configured FOXUSER file with your app if you will be using MODIFY FILE to display specifically named files.

In VFP Options dialog on the IDE page you can change the default font used by MODIFY FILE for specific types of files (and text files also). With the option to Use font script set it is also possible to change a charset.

I don't know where these options are saved, maybe in FOXUSER.DBF.