diff --git a/src/x11/window-props.c b/src/x11/window-props.c
index d165c2cd2..d06a89a21 100644
--- a/src/x11/window-props.c
+++ b/src/x11/window-props.c
@@ -651,7 +651,10 @@ reload_wm_name (MetaWindow    *window,
 
   if (value->type != META_PROP_VALUE_INVALID)
     {
-      set_window_title (window, value->v.str);
+      g_autofree gchar *title = g_convert (value->v.str, -1,
+                                           "UTF-8", "LATIN1",
+                                           NULL, NULL, NULL);
+      set_window_title (window, title);
 
       meta_verbose ("Using WM_NAME for new title of %s: \"%s\"\n",
                     window->desc, window->title);
diff --git a/src/x11/xprops.c b/src/x11/xprops.c
index 2bef29985..ae05afe14 100644
--- a/src/x11/xprops.c
+++ b/src/x11/xprops.c
@@ -639,7 +639,6 @@ text_property_to_utf8 (Display *xdisplay,
 {
   char *ret = NULL;
   char **local_list = NULL;
-  const char *charset = NULL;
   int count = 0;
   int res;
 
@@ -650,10 +649,7 @@ text_property_to_utf8 (Display *xdisplay,
   if (count == 0)
     goto out;
 
-  if (g_get_charset (&charset))
-    ret = g_strdup (local_list[0]);
-  else
-    ret = g_convert (local_list[0], -1, "UTF-8", charset, NULL, NULL, NULL);
+  ret = g_strdup (local_list[0]);
 
  out:
   XFreeStringList (local_list);