Windows 7 Fonts & Symbols

I am using Windows 7. After at least 2 or 3 times using it for rebooting when adding programs that require rebooting. I noticed that Win 7 fonts turn into these stupid symbols.(Squares, circles, triangles....etc.) Nothing anywhere can be read. These symbols are everywhere. Wherever there is supposed to b the normal fonts they are now symbols. And it just keeps doing this after every re-installation and 2 or 3 reboots. Has anyone else experienced this issue and how could I stop it from happening? Thank you.

Hi there.

More info is definately needed here.

But, some docs are in other languages and if you use a western font you will see weird simbols instead of the text.

Also some fonts are not text fonts but symbols, check what font is used and switch (with text selected) to see if this is the problem.

is it possible to take a screenshot? i used to get it in windows XP all the time but as john said its a foreign language that wasnt installed. on vista/7 ive never had a problem.

OK....I cannot take a screenshot cause I managed to get it to stop by closing auto updates and deleting fonts with '&' in the registry. So far it has stopped. But what was happening is this: when you bootup and you see the windows 7 logo on the screen....they turned into these symbols mentioned (squares, circles, etc)
The desktop...all the icons are not readable...they too have the symbols not words under them. No matter what you click on in Win7 all words/fonts are now symbols. Windows explorer...have no words...everything turned to these symbols. Nothing is readable. Everything was fine from the initial install. But after rebooting like once or twice....there it was.

What version of Windows 7 are you using?

Double check your Regional Settings and make sure you have the proper location selected.

Sorry forgot to mention that. It's Win7 Ultimate. I took your advice and checked out the regional settings. everything in there is set right. U.S. settings and English settings...so i don't think its that causing it.

any other software that might require other fonts/chars to be used? devices that might install their own char sets? tablet/touch screen maybe?

just a stab in the dark

Nope nothing. Never had this issue before with anything or any other OS. Until Win7. No tablet/touch screen. So I shut down auto updates and removed certain fonts from the registry with the '&' sign in them and the problem stopped. Don't know if it will continue when I start using the updates again but eventually I will have to try to see.

Hi there.

Have you checked what font the offending section is using?

If it is the desktop, right click on the desktop left click on properties, i have XP but it should be similar, click on the appearance tab, and select desktop there will be a font selected change it to one you know is ok (like TIMES) and click OK.

If it is a different section of win look for it in there, this should fix your problem.

No that didn't help. I have pictures of this I took with my camera. I just don't know how to insert them here so that you all can see what I am referring to. Yes it did happen again. I installed Ripbot264 and it asked for a certain font that wasnt installed and it installed it for me. I do not remember which one it was...it went by to fast to remember. After rebooting the crazy symbols are back and I took pictures of the screen. But i installed this same program on my other PC and it did not ask for this particular font. Only PC2 did.

To post an image what I do is first copy the image to my personal file storage on my ISP Comcast. I then put a link to it in my post.
I use the format: [IMG]pathtoimage[/IMG]
An example is:

OK here are the images of what i am having an issue with. This is what the symbols over fonts looks like:



Pic1-Is desktop
Pic2-Windows Explorer
Pic3-Desktop(start button)

Thanks all but I found out what was causing this issue. It was Winzip 10 and Winrar 3.91. Both are 32bit and both are NOT compatible with Win7 Ultimate 64bit. They do have versions out now that are compatible with Win 7 64bit. I have them now installed and all is well after rebooting. Thanks again! Lesson learned.

Hi there.

Now that was different, never saw non-malicious programs cause such problems before.

Such an insightful post; it teaches us so much.

I, on the other hand, have seen such an interaction, though that particular symbol-set is a new one on me. For instance, you'll get a similar display if you try to read Word 96 documents in a more modern Office product.

My first thought is that the 32-bit installs substituted their own version of a library the is critical to the Win 7 OS. That would be a major problem in the implementation of Win 7, no?