Windows XP assistance needed

[Maro]

hey everyone.... I need a little computer help.

 

The other day, I power on my machine only to find that ALL of the text is has now been replaced with screwed up symbols (desktop, files, directories, EVERYTHING. After some investigation, I find that my \fonts directory appears to be EMPTY. I re-installed the fonts from the XP CD, and the symbols return to text. GREAT!

 

Problem solved...right? Er.. no... for when I reboot, the symbols are right back. I don't want to have to import the fonts everytime I turn on the machine!

 

So... appears that I got some kind of bug. Neither McAfee AV nor Norton find anything.

 

Any ideas?!?!?!?

[MrMeanGreen]

Reload Windows. Pop the CD in and reinstall.

[Maro]

Argh.... last.... resort.....

[sgtschulze]

What kind of symbols?? Foreign language maybe?? It could be possible that something hacked your registry and your language preference has been altered. Other than that....these wackos out there doing viruses, worms, trojans etc... are always a step ahead of the antivirus folks. Sucks!!!!

 

That's why I have my OS on it's own partition....reinstall/repair no problem.

 

Hey that's a thought...have you tried the repair function in Win XP or the restore function???

[Maro]

Ended up figuring it out....

 

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS NT/CurrentVersion/Fonts registry entry was deleted somehow, so the windows registry could not link to the .fon files on reboot.

 

Must've inadvertantly dl'ed some malicious code that edited the registry. Added that key back and it appears to be working ok now....

 

Thanks...