Fonts all changed to wingdings! Help!

[dcntguy123]

Upgraded to XP in 2002 - no problem for 2 yrs. Kept up
with all svc packs, Norton AV current. Started my PC
yesterday - screen stayed blank for 5 min. Pushed button
to shut down - nothing. Pulled the plug & reinserted.
When restarting, ALL desktop & menu items are in
WingDings!

The display/appearance tab allows to change font SIZE,
but not to change the FONT. Since everything's in
WingDings it's hard to navigate. I even deleted the
WingDing fonts from the fonts folder - still WingDings.

Tried to Reload Win XP. The screen to enter the product
key is also in WingDings. I can't enter the key.

HELP! - Thanx, JD

 

[geto]

I've found two possible solutions, both of them long
shots. The simplest was the restart the computer in safe
mode. The site I read said your fonts might reset
themselves back to the defaults by the time you go back to
normal mode.

If that doesn't work, I believe I found the registry key
(s) where the default font is stored. Go to
Start>Run>regedit and navigate to the following key.

HKLM/software/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/FontSubsti
tutes

You should see in there:
MS Shell Dlg---REG_SZ---Microsoft Sans Serif
MS Shell Dlg 2---REG_SZ---Tahoma

If the data is different from that (and I hope it is),
post its contents. If the data is the same, and the Safe
Mode didn't work, then I'm at a loss.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion, but the registry editor also
displaye everything in - WINGDINGS.

I also saw 2 others on the boards who have this problem.
In one case (not mine) a System restore helps,
temporarily. Another suggestion was to create a new
account - tried that too.

If there's a way o check/change the registry values
purely through DOS that might work. I can restart in DOS
and run regedit, but it is a windows based editor that
appears - you guessed it, in Wingdings.

Just drives me crazy to see a perfectly good and reliable
computer taken down like this. Microsoft themselves could
not have come up with the more perfect virus...

Any help - greatly appreciated.
JD