Bobyoungbalt's û problem has prompted me to re post the url to my grab-bag of windows utilities.
http://www.driveway.com/share?sid=9f78513f.96073&name=useful+stuff

There is a relatively small app. there called mapofcharacters - a freeware replacement for the charmap that can be found on most Win9x CDs. It is a very handy utility, made with typical Teutonic efficiency (the very occasional error messages are all in German), and its main advantage over the standard M$ product is that it opens in a window big enough to let you see the characters clearly. For those Windows users who use only a few accented characters, here are some of the more common - hold down the Alt key while pressing the numbers on the numeric keypad.
Alt+0161 ¡
Alt+0191 ¿
Alt+0224 à
Alt+0225 á
Alt+0228 ä
Alt+0231 ç
Alt+0232 è
Alt+0233 é
Alt+0241 ñ
Alt+0246 ö
Alt+0251 û
Alt+0252 ü

What is unfortunate about this, apart from its being Windows specific, is that I can't find the diacritical marks I need to spell words in Maori properly. Modern Maori is written with diacritical lines drawn over long vowels, with the alternative being to double the vowel if the special characters are unavailable. Hence, I should type "Maaori" - but it looks so ugly that I can't bring myself to do it.
Just my 2¢