All system fonts are missing

[Lisa W]

For some reason all of my system fonts are missing. They
disappeared oddly enough on April 1st. I have spent all
day trying to find a solution to this problem. I have
searched for known viruses, I have searched Windows known
issues, I have searched the internet, I have spoken with
IT technicians, nothing. I did not install or uninstall
anything. I just woke up in the morning of April 1st to
find this problem (it was fine the night before).

So I copied all the system fonts from my laptop and
reinstalled them on the affected computer. It seemed to
solve the symptoms until I rebooted the computer. Guess
what? They all disappeared after rebooting. So I tried it
again and backdated the system a month, same thing
result. Hmmm...

I am trying to find a solution before reinstalling the
operating system (I did try to repair with the emergency
repair disk and from the Windows CD, neither worked at
all). I also checked the registry and the fonts are still
listed.

Help!

 

[George Hester]

This has got to be the strangest issue I have seen in the last two months. Never any issue such as this and WHAMMO now they are appearing like a hornets nest.

Note Windows 2000 would not even start if you really had no fonts. It would just hang at the startup screen. It would go nowhere. If you can boot into Safe Mode you have fonts.

All I can figure at this point is that you have an application which is starting at boot and is "hiding" your fonts.

To this end I would like to see what you have in these two locations in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
(No subkeys don't need them)

Under here I need to know the subkeys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PROTOCOLS\Handler
(No values don't need them)

Check your Starup folders for anything suspicious:
C:\Documents and Settings\%profile%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
both your profile and Default User

Run an online virus scanner:
http://www.antivirus.com

Get Adware, BHODemon and HijackThis. Install and Run them.

 

[Lisa W]

You wouldn't beleive the amount of technicians and
specialists this has stumped.

I know that windows won't boot without any fonts. I have
run all the scans with the latest updates to no avail. I
checked the registry and could see nothing weird. I also
checked the running processes and they were all ok.

Unfortunately I can no longer send you the registry as I
reformatted about an hour ago and am reinstalling windows
as I write.

I have a copy of the processes if you are interested, and
may be able to locate the registry in my backups tomorrow.

Lisa W

-----Original Message-----
This has got to be the strangest issue I have seen in

the last two months. Never any issue such as this and
WHAMMO now they are appearing like a hornets nest.

Note Windows 2000 would not even start if you really had

no fonts. It would just hang at the startup screen. It
would go nowhere. If you can boot into Safe Mode you
have fonts.

All I can figure at this point is that you have an

application which is starting at boot and is "hiding"
your fonts.

To this end I would like to see what you have in these two locations in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi on\Run
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
(No subkeys don't need them)

Under here I need to know the subkeys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PROTOCOLS\Handler
(No values don't need them)

Check your Starup folders for anything suspicious:
C:\Documents and Settings\%profile%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
both your profile and Default User

Run an online virus scanner:
http://www.antivirus.com

Get Adware, BHODemon and HijackThis. Install and Run them.

message news:[email protected]...

 

[George Hester]

Yes if you cold send the reg stuff I asked for I may be able to identify the culprit if (it?) is loaded at boot.