diff --git a/src/load_map.cpp b/src/load_map.cpp
index b4f65bf11e..21234507b8 100644
--- a/src/load_map.cpp
+++ b/src/load_map.cpp
@@ -69,6 +69,10 @@
 // stl
 #include <iostream>
 
+#ifdef _WINDOWS
+#include <Windows.h>
+#endif
+
 using boost::lexical_cast;
 using boost::bad_lexical_cast;
 using boost::tokenizer;
@@ -132,6 +136,27 @@ class map_parser : boost::noncopyable {
 
 };
 
+#ifdef _WINDOWS
+std::string wstring2string(const std::wstring& s)
+{
+    int slength = (int)s.length() + 1;
+    int len = ::WideCharToMultiByte(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, 0, 0, 0, 0);
+    boost::scoped_array<char> buf_ptr(new char [len+1]);
+    ::WideCharToMultiByte(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, buf_ptr.get(), len, 0, 0);
+    std::string r(buf_ptr.get());
+    return r;
+}
+
+std::wstring utf8ToWide( const std::string& str )
+{
+    int len = ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, str.c_str(), -1, 0, 0);
+    boost::scoped_array<wchar_t> buf_ptr(new wchar_t [len+1]);
+    ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, str.c_str(), -1, buf_ptr.get(), len);
+    std::wstring rt(buf_ptr.get());
+    return rt;
+}
+#endif
+
 void load_map(Map & map, std::string const& filename, bool strict)
 {
     ptree pt;
@@ -695,7 +720,18 @@ void map_parser::parse_layer( Map & map, ptree const & lay )
                         std::string name = get_attr<std::string>(param, "name");
                         std::string value = get_value<std::string>( param,
                                                                     "datasource parameter");
+#ifdef _WINDOWS
+                        if (name == "file")
+                        {
+                            params[name] = wstring2string(utf8ToWide(value));
+                        }
+                        else
+                        {
+                            params[name] = value;
+                        }
+#else
                         params[name] = value;
+#endif
                     }
                     else if( paramIter->first != "<xmlattr>"  &&
                              paramIter->first != "<xmlcomment>" )