using response.cookie - problem

[s_m_b]

Having just migrated to w2k from NT4, I've stumbled across an oddity with
cookie handling - at least, that's what it appears to be.
I (was) using response.buffer with .addheader to write two cookies into a
the http header for a particular page . Worked fine for three years.
After the upgrade, I'm finding that two copies of the same cookie appear,
one with blanks for values, the other with values filled in; this has the
effect of logging the user into the page if the first copy isn't blank....

So, I changed the code to use response.cookie, which is fine, but the
names/values get encoded, and unfortunately the software vendor uses dashes
in the name part.

Is there any way to force .cookie to not encode the '-'?

or do I need to look at javascript to write the cookie ?

TIA