character set problem

Hello, Using PHP 4.3.1 on a Windows 2k/Apache, i am trying to insert some text like "Test é à ë" into a MS SQL database. The result I get using the query analyzer : Test Ú Þ Ù is not the same as you can see for yourself. However; ms sql supports those characters when i insert them directly into the query analyzer. My locales support those characters (.be locals), and i configured the php.ini to support the iso-8859-1 charset (and use the mssql dll extension). What's also weird, is that the function htmlspecialchars has no effect on the result, whilst htmlentities does have one; but then the textfield looks like " Test é è ë " which wasn't exactly the point. I used an older version of php once; ( i believe it was 4.1.1 or something) and there wasn't any bug regarding charsets etc (on a ms sql database). Can anybody give me any clue where to look or what to do? thank you, regards Filip filip@curious.be