XP Laptop Loses Desktop Settings on Reboot

[GregE240]

Heres an absolute cracker.

Rebooted my laptop yesterday for the first time in forever and now when you logon, EVERYTHING is in "Symbol" text. The CTRL-ALT-DEL screen, what you type into it, the desktop icons, the whole nine yards.

Seems that when the PC reboots it deletes all font files out of WindowsFonts, meaning that nothing displays properly.

I've checked the Registry for some sneaky Run command but nothing is there.

Any other ideas? Does anyone know of any spyware that does this sort of thing?

Driving me up the bloody wall (although I could get round the Display Properties window blindfolded now)

[Podie]

Sounds like a users.dat problem... the system is not writing the changes.

Create a new user (administrator) make some changes, and then go back in, see if that resolves it.

[GregE240]

Happens with all users mate....I've got my own local admin account, and 2 domain accounts too

Right pain in the arse it is too.

[nick heppinstall]

Have a go at a previous restore point ?

[GregE240]

nick heppinstall said:

Have a go at a previous restore point ?

Great idea.

Disabled, sadly.

[Podie]

System policy...?

Control Panel > Admin Tools > Local Security Policy

>> Edited by Podie on Tuesday 2nd March 10:00

[Plotloss]

Are the windows still being drawn properly? i.e. do you have the min, max and resize lines when in non maximised mode?

If so then you still have marlett.ttf at the very least.

Tried selecting another appearance scheme in display properties?

[GregE240]

Sorted.

A rogue font, it would appear.

Windows File Protection warnings all over the Application Log.

Basically deleted what old files I could have, then expanded them off my XP CD. Rebooted, works a treat.