diff --git a/include/nodereadimpl.h b/include/nodereadimpl.h
index 1f2341c..9ec024a 100644
--- a/include/nodereadimpl.h
+++ b/include/nodereadimpl.h
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ namespace YAML
 
 	// Note: this doesn't work on gcc 3.2, but does on gcc 3.4 and above. I'm not sure about 3.3.
 	
-#if (__GNUC__ < 3 || (__GNUC__ == 3 && __GNUC_MINOR__ <= 3))
+#if __GNUC__ && (__GNUC__ < 3 || (__GNUC__ == 3 && __GNUC_MINOR__ <= 3))
 	// trick doesn't work? Just fall back to ConvertScalar.
 	// This means that we can't use any user-defined types as keys in a map
 	template <typename T>
diff --git a/yaml-reader/spectests.cpp b/yaml-reader/spectests.cpp
index 2eb3e8f..009c690 100644
--- a/yaml-reader/spectests.cpp
+++ b/yaml-reader/spectests.cpp
@@ -477,7 +477,7 @@ namespace Test {
 			parser.GetNextDocument(doc);
 			
 			YAML_ASSERT(doc.size() == 6);
-			YAML_ASSERT(doc["unicode"] == "Sosa did fine.\u263A");
+			YAML_ASSERT(doc["unicode"] == "Sosa did fine.\xe2\x98\xba");
 			YAML_ASSERT(doc["control"] == "\b1998\t1999\t2000\n");
 			YAML_ASSERT(doc["hex esc"] == "\x0d\x0a is \r\n");
 			YAML_ASSERT(doc["single"] == "\"Howdy!\" he cried.");
@@ -809,7 +809,7 @@ namespace Test {
 			YAML::Node doc;
 			parser.GetNextDocument(doc);
 			
-			YAML_ASSERT(doc == "Fun with \x5C \x22 \x07 \x08 \x1B \x0C \x0A \x0D \x09 \x0B " + std::string("\x00", 1) + " \x20 \xA0 \x85 \u2028 \u2029 A A A");
+			YAML_ASSERT(doc == "Fun with \x5C \x22 \x07 \x08 \x1B \x0C \x0A \x0D \x09 \x0B " + std::string("\x00", 1) + " \x20 \xA0 \x85 \xe2\x80\xa8 \xe2\x80\xa9 A A A");
 			return true;
 		}