Small string fixes for encoding compatibility issues #376

Job	Run time
ruby-versions / Generate Ruby versions	3s
windows-latest 2.7	4m 11s
windows-latest 3.0	1m 56s
windows-latest 3.1	1m 11s
windows-latest 3.2	1m 41s
windows-latest 3.3	1m 53s
windows-latest 3.4	3m 11s
windows-latest jruby-head	3m 23s
windows-latest mingw	1m 47s
windows-latest mswin	1m 28s
	20m 44s

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