Windowx XP all Characters/Gibberish

[Guest]

Hi,

I am trying to help my Mother, who lives 2000 miles away. Her computer has
totally went nuts! Every plavce that is supposed to be fonts is now binary
characters/gibberish. Here is a picture of her screen:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/brittanygur/momcoputer.jpg

Has anyone ever seen this? Norton says everything is ok, but obviously it
is not! Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Elmo]

Hi,

I am trying to help my Mother, who lives 2000 miles away. Her computer has
totally went nuts! Every plavce that is supposed to be fonts is now binary
characters/gibberish. Here is a picture of her screen:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/brittanygur/momcoputer.jpg

Has anyone ever seen this? Norton says everything is ok, but obviously it
is not! Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

A system font is probably corrupted or missing. Another font has been
used to replace it. Here's a post I found:

"The font is Marlett.

If the Marlett.ttf file is damaged or missing, numbers or garbled
characters appear in place of controls.

If you need to replace the Marlett.ttf file, extract it to the
Windows\Fonts folder. Set the file's Hidden and System attributes.

For more info, see the MS Knowledge base article:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q134/8/61.asp "

It could also be Ms Sans Serif or Tahoma that's damaged. Click Start,
Run, type SFC /SCANNOW, click OK. If any files are damaged or missing,
they'll be replaced. You may need to reboot afterwards so damaged files
will be replaced.

If repairing the fonts alone doesn't restore them, maybe something here
will help:

Fonts Supplied with Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/winxp.htm

How to Determine the Default Windows Fonts
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q254768

TrueType Fonts Shipped with Microsoft Applications
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q123084

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

A system font is probably corrupted or missing. Another font has been
used to replace it. Here's a post I found:

"The font is Marlett.

I don't think so. The Marlett font supplies symbols like the three icons in
the upper right corner of all Windows. It doesn't provide text, and Gur8's
problem appears to be with text.

It could also be Ms Sans Serif or Tahoma that's damaged.

Yes, much more likely.