Can't keep fonts installed

[Jonathan]

My Windows XP has gotten into a state where I cannot keep
fonts installed. When I reboot the machine, Windows
comes up with symbols of some kind instead of English
fonts. All of the font files are still there in the
appropriate folders in the Windows hierarchy, but if I
open up the Fonts Control Panel applet, it is empty.

I can then reinstall the fonts through the CP applet. If
I then change the fonts in some way (the only way I've
figured out to do this is to go to the display applet and
change to larger fonts, then back to Normal fonts, but
there's probably other ways), then everything is normal,
all the fonts on the desktop, in the browser, and all
applications are correct. However, if I then reboot the
system, the symbols reappear and there are no fonts
installed.

I've tried doing a virus scan (I use Mcafee), and a
Scandisk. I have not installed any new applications or
drivers since this started happening, although I have
installed a couple of Microsoft Windows updates.

Anybody have any ideas of what's happening and how I can
fix it?

Jonathan

 

[Alex Nichol]

My Windows XP has gotten into a state where I cannot keep
fonts installed. When I reboot the machine, Windows
comes up with symbols of some kind instead of English
fonts. All of the font files are still there in the
appropriate folders in the Windows hierarchy, but if I
open up the Fonts Control Panel applet, it is empty.

This is a guess for what sounds to be a weird situation: but I think it
may have arisen through corruption of the desktop.ini file in the
Windows\Fonts folder.

Make a new one in Notepad. It should be a simple text file containing
just

[.ShellClassInfo]
UICLSID={BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948F534}

so copy that into Notepad and save it as say windows\fontdesk.txt
(making sure the Save as box uses ANSI coding at the bottom, not
Unicode)

Now use All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt - and give

CD \WINDOWS\FONTS
ATTRIB -H -R -S DESKTOP.INI
DEL DESKTOP.INI
COPY WINDOWS\FONTDESK.TXT DESKTOP.INI
ATTRIB +H +R +S DESKTOP.INI