strange symbols instead of normal characters

wijcc

wijcc

wijcc

Soldato
Joined
10 Aug 2003
Posts
2,695
Location
London
I am in need to some help, one of my friends when attempting to install a new printer kind of messed up his laptop.
Now when he starts his laptop, instead of normal characters, all he gets is symbols like "?", squares etc, instead of the normal alphanumeric characters i.e. A, B C etc. I tried starting the laptop in safe-mode, it is the same in that mode too, strange symbols instead of the normal words.
His laptop is running windows xp home edition, can anyone help me shed any light on how to rectify this?
Thanks in advance guys :)
 
Can you get in to safe mode or does it stop you at a login prompt ? isn't there and EN box that you can change language with ?

check language settings.

you could try press f8 when the pc is loading, after bios, before windows. Then choose load last known good configuration. Should reload before changes.
 
I tried booting into safe mode and copying the fonts folder from another win xp machine, but still no joy :(
Also tried the last known good configuration.. again still did not cure the problem
 
I have no idea if this will help but the other day I was messing around with the office computer at home and when i booted up I had the same problem. Turns out a folder was holding down some keys as I was trying to type. I was getting all kinds of weird characters come up and at first was baffling. They keys being held down were CTRL and the key to the left of it which is like a spell check button on the lower right of the keyboard.

I dont know if this will help but your friend may have some keys stuck so it might be worth checking and cleaning the keys...:)
 
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