If I run my C++ application with the following main() method everything is OK:
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { cout << \"There are \" << a
the _T convention is used to indicate the program should use the character set defined for the application (Unicode, ASCII, MBCS, etc.). You can surround your strings with _T( ) to have them stored in the correct format.
cout << _T( "There are " ) << argc << _T( " arguments:" ) << endl;