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kgsharon

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Missing fonts in Windows XP Pro

I have a problem that I've never seen before. When I reboot my WinXP Pro machine, the Fonts folder (\Windows\Fonts) empties itself. This causes the OS to display nonsense characters everywhere there would normally be text (Start Menu, Windows Explorer, etc.). I have copied all the fonts from another XP computer to a temp folder on my hard drive, and I can reinstall the fonts, using the File/Install New Font option in Control Panel. This works until I have to reboot. Once the machine reboots, the fonts are gone again, and I have to repeat the process. Has anyone heard of or experienced this problem before? I'm running XP Pro with SP1 and all current updates. I've run NAV Corporate with the latest virus definitions, with no result. I also tried repairing the Fonts folder with the Tweak UI utility. Any help you can offer would be appreciated.
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Fatal_Exception
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Try scanning your system files for a start..

Open Command Shell and type:

sfc /purgecache
sfc /scannow

and put your XP cd in the drive..

Also, make sure you have all the updates installed afterwards..
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gemarti
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Thank you.
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whitedog1

I have just had exact same experience. From the first GUI screen all text appeared as Windings - very hard to read! The cause appears to have been one of 2 things:

* Loading Windows XP SP2 OR
*(More likely) Shortly after that  I ran McAfee Internet Security's QuickClean Lite utility. This includes options to clean temp files etc, and the registry.

After discussions with other people the latter has been identified as most probable cause - as 3rd party apps such as McAfee ClickClean does not appear to be compatable with SP2 platform.

how I fixed the prob:
1. Reinstall from  he Windows XP from the CD - DONT do a clean install.
2. Download Windows XP updates, including SP2 again.

Note this took me several hours to complete the process.

Best advice I found (hindsight is a wonderful thing) was to wait a few months before installing SP2 - especially if you already have Firewall etc protect through other products such as McAfee. McAfee etc also need to be upgraded to fit the registry changes that Sp2 intriduce.