Has anyone else seen a problem with not being able to type backticks on WindowsXP? I'm currently using v4.6.2, and the backticks do not display. Regional setting is English (United Kingdom). It works everywhere else (explorer, command line, notepad, etc). It also works in Windows NT (haven't tested on Windows 2000).
Have you tried changing the font and script for the particular document class that you are using? If not, try setting the Courier New font with a Western script.