diff --git a/java/external/src/javax/xml/parsers/FactoryFinder.java b/java/external/src/javax/xml/parsers/FactoryFinder.java
index c35400d..0157924 100644
--- a/java/external/src/javax/xml/parsers/FactoryFinder.java
+++ b/java/external/src/javax/xml/parsers/FactoryFinder.java
@@ -203,8 +203,29 @@ class FactoryFinder {
         
             if( is!=null ) {
                 debugPrintln("found " + serviceId);
-                BufferedReader rd =
-                    new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"));
+
+                // Read the service provider name in UTF-8 as specified in
+                // the jar spec.  Unfortunately this fails in Microsoft
+                // VJ++, which does not implement the UTF-8
+                // encoding. Theoretically, we should simply let it fail in
+                // that case, since the JVM is obviously broken if it
+                // doesn't support such a basic standard.  But since there
+                // are still some users attempting to use VJ++ for
+                // development, we have dropped in a fallback which makes a
+                // second attempt using the platform's default encoding. In
+                // VJ++ this is apparently ASCII, which is a subset of
+                // UTF-8... and since the strings we'll be reading here are
+                // also primarily limited to the 7-bit ASCII range (at
+                // least, in English versions), this should work well
+                // enough to keep us on the air until we're ready to
+                // officially decommit from VJ++. [Edited comment from
+                // jkesselm]
+                BufferedReader rd;
+                try {
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"));
+                } catch (java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
+                }
         
                 String factoryClassName = rd.readLine();
                 rd.close();
diff --git a/java/external/src/javax/xml/transform/FactoryFinder.java b/java/external/src/javax/xml/transform/FactoryFinder.java
index 8babbe6..6924db4 100644
--- a/java/external/src/javax/xml/transform/FactoryFinder.java
+++ b/java/external/src/javax/xml/transform/FactoryFinder.java
@@ -203,8 +203,29 @@ class FactoryFinder {
         
             if( is!=null ) {
                 debugPrintln("found " + serviceId);
-                BufferedReader rd =
-                    new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"));
+
+                // Read the service provider name in UTF-8 as specified in
+                // the jar spec.  Unfortunately this fails in Microsoft
+                // VJ++, which does not implement the UTF-8
+                // encoding. Theoretically, we should simply let it fail in
+                // that case, since the JVM is obviously broken if it
+                // doesn't support such a basic standard.  But since there
+                // are still some users attempting to use VJ++ for
+                // development, we have dropped in a fallback which makes a
+                // second attempt using the platform's default encoding. In
+                // VJ++ this is apparently ASCII, which is a subset of
+                // UTF-8... and since the strings we'll be reading here are
+                // also primarily limited to the 7-bit ASCII range (at
+                // least, in English versions), this should work well
+                // enough to keep us on the air until we're ready to
+                // officially decommit from VJ++. [Edited comment from
+                // jkesselm]
+                BufferedReader rd;
+                try {
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"));
+                } catch (java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
+                }
         
                 String factoryClassName = rd.readLine();
                 rd.close();