two utf-8 questions

[B. T. Raven]

1)

Even though the following is in my .emacs:

 (setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'utf-8)

when I type 'C-x ret f' I see the prompt:

Coding system for visited file (default, nil) instead of (default, utf-8)

There are contexts where I need to specify utf-8 here, or else the file
won't be saved in the correct format. This seems to be true even if the
file header ;; -*- coding: utf-8 -*- is present. Why is this?


2)

Has it been pretty much decided that copypasting Unicode using the
clipboard between emacs and MS apps is impossible for OS versions earlier
than W2000? Even though most of what I read on emacs-devel is Greek to me,
I try to glean whatever I can from postings relating to w32. After many
months of lurking there I am beginning to suspect that some of the
following settings are particularly inappropriate:

(set-language-environment               'UTF-8)
        (set-default-coding-systems             'utf-8)
        (setq file-name-coding-system           'utf-8)
        (setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'utf-8)
        (setq coding-system-for-write           'utf-8)
        (set-keyboard-coding-system             'utf-8)
        (set-terminal-coding-system             'utf-8)
        (set-clipboard-coding-system            'utf-8)
        (set-selection-coding-system            'utf-8)
        (prefer-coding-system                   'utf-8)
        (modify-coding-system-alist 'process
"[cC][mM][dD][pP][rR][oO][xX][yY]" 'utf-8-dos)

What could the clipboard and  selection variables be set to in order to
give me a better chance of copypasting Unicode successfully?

Thanks,

Ed