fonts disappear -- OS displays all text as wingding like symbols
From: Roseanne (roseanne_at_pop3.com)
Date: 03/04/04
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Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 11:06:40 -0800
Hi. Got a problem I'm trying to diagnose the base cause
for:
On bootup, everything past the initial Windows XP display
comes up with all text in unreadable wingdings. Welcome
screen, start button, pop-up boxes, mouse overs, all in
unreadable symbols. Most apps are affected too (notepad
is not, but all MS Office suite is). Clearly, something
is telling the OS it doesn't have any fonts. Did a system
restore to a checkpoint about a week prior and the machine
displays fine. Reboot - fine. Shut down and leave it
overnight, thing comes up with the same behavior. While
in this heiroglyphic mode, I found a way to get *some of
the text to display by entering itno the Display settings
and adjusting the Advanced options on Themes (got there by
memorizing the steps performed on a healthy machine). In
there I could see the font option box for the menues etc
was blank (how can that be?). Only two fonts were even
available on the drop down and the system definitely has
all oem fonts (drop to DOS shell and check the fonts
dir.... they're all there). I selected one (system) and
got enough of the text displaying in readable text to run
regedit. The key for fonts was gone
(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts ). I recreated it, and life was
good. Rebooted several times fine. Powered down, left it
overnight, fire it up in the morning, it's symbols again.
*sigh* Same sitch with the registry key.
I read on another web site that System Mechanic can cause
this problem, but this machine does not have that
installed. It's a standalone machine (eMachines) running
XP Home with a dialup connection to the internet. It's
running Norton 2002 and all dats are current. Just for
grins (and in case the older Norton engine isn't as on the
ball as the newest), I had the owner of the machine do
full online scans from Panda, Trend, Symantec, and
McAfee. All came up clean. I'm at a loss. Does anyone
have any ideas what would be a likely culprit for making
such a change to the registry but only after the machine
is booting up for the first time of the day?
-Roseanne
(Resource material -
http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/90884.htm
l AND http://www.iolo.com/knowledgebaseitem.cfm?
id=13&product=SM&versn=4&returnto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eiolo%
2Ecom%2Fknowledgebase%2Ecfm%3FPHRASE%3Dfonts%2520XP%
26PRODUCT%3DSM%253A4%26BTNGO%2EX%3D0%26BTNGO%2EY%3D0%
26SEARCHTYPE%3DAND%26ENTITIES%3Dtutorial%252Ckb%252Cfaq )
- Next message: Shawn: "When I start my computer I get these two errors..."
- Previous message: Rocket J. Squirrel: "Re: Missing Program file"
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