Windows dead! Need help!

[CatKnight]

Starting about 11:00 PM last night my Windows....corrupted is all I can think of. The Windows screens, menus, icons and such are now displaying in a font that OpenOffice calls 'Martlett' and looks alot like 'Wingdings.'

In short, nothing is readable. I typed in the forum web address blindly to get here, and since this forum isn't Windows dependent I can read it....however the font on my display looks a lot like you'd find with Notepad - IE none.

I also blindly loaded some of my writings and spreadsheets....and have the same 'font' issue. Since what's written isn't Windows dependent it's legible, but it ain't in Arial or any other font I'm used to seeing.

The only thing that comes to mind is that for one reason or another, my Windows is not reading its own font file, and therefore is falling back on this Martlett/Wingdings whatever it is.

There were no power surges last night. I DID run my spyware programs, but I'm confident they went only after programs deemed a threat....mostly cookies. Certainly nothing in Windows or its subdirectories. I've tried rebooting several times, tinkering with the display, snooping around in DOS and so forth.

As it stands I'm pretty much stuck with either wiping the drive and getting a new copy of Windows, or (cheaper) getting a low-end but serviceable PC. Without being able to read the menus, directories and such I'm pretty well stuck.

Does anyone have any clue what happened, and if so what I can do about it?

[asianinvasion]

Yeah, this just happened to my computer. Check your fonts file in the windows file in the C drive. You shouldnt have any fonts. Then you would have to run your Windows setup again and repair the problem. Overall, it took me about a hour and a half to fix the problem.

[ohms_law]

Yea, just use the Windows CD and do a restore.

[CatKnight]

Sigh. No good, guys.

1- I got this 'puter from a friend five years ago. No Windows CD to restore FROM. I could probably get my hands on one, except....

2- The CD drive on this thing died about two months ago. I'd forgotten that when I mentioned wiping the drive.

I suspect between this, the CD drive, and a nasty clock error a few months ago (it reset to I think 1998 with no warning, messing up several programs) the whole system's been dying for awhile.

Thanks anyway

[OldFatGuy]

Did you, perchance, recently download an update for Java??

[Arctic Blast]

With the clock error, I'm wondering if maybe your problem is a dead or dying cmos battery. If that's all it is, it really isn't expensive or hard to replace.

[cartman00000001]

a 5 year old computer? Time for a new one.

If you want to try something new, you could always try Ubuntu Linux. Could put it on that PC if you can work on the battery issue. Might be something fun to try...won't cost you a dime. Choice is yours.

[YEAH DAAAAWG]

It happened on my old computer once, and you don't have to restore to fix it. If you can navigate your way through to your display settings, amiss the unreadable font, you can just change your font to something that is readable in your settings somewhere, or thats what I did anyways.

[asianinvasion]

It happened on my old computer once, and you don't have to restore to fix it. If you can navigate your way through to your display settings, amiss the unreadable font, you can just change your font to something that is readable in your settings somewhere, or thats what I did anyways.

Well if you dont have any fonts to start out with, you cant do that.

[Rongar]

How goes the battle, Cat?...any forrarder on your Windows problem?

[belial]

a 5 year old computer? Time for a new one.

If you want to try something new, you could always try Ubuntu Linux. Could put it on that PC if you can work on the battery issue. Might be something fun to try...won't cost you a dime. Choice is yours.

Odd, I don't have a machine newer than 5 years old.

[BINGLEBOP]

Do you still have Web TV?

[CatKnight]

Web TV? Huh??

The battle goes poorly. I tried tinkering with the display, but as asianinvasion and ohms says, the fonts appear to be gone and/or corrupted.

This can be confirmed by loading one of my old sheets or files in OpenOffice. The writing starts in what it claims is Arial (..not), but the only 'font' I can change it to is this Martlett/Wingdings thing.

I doubt the battery's the issue. The clock's okay at the moment as near as I can tell. Granted it probably needs help eventually, but that seems unrelated.

Switching to Linux might be worth trying...though there I lose access to quite a bit of software as I understand it.

I'd been saving for a backup, now it seems I need to save a little more and try to get a 'real' PC.

[asianinvasion]

It may be a temporary fix but you can download some fonts from the internet and put them in the fonts file.

[Arctic Blast]

Unfortunately, my limited computer knowledge is stumped...this is just weird.