Text appears as lots of small rectangles

[EricZ]

Running 98SE my action button and report text in Spybot and Ad Aware are all small rectangles. I know it's something simple but don't remember how to fix it. I've searched all over the forums and haven't found anything. Help please.

[GaryRouth]

Hi Eric

I've never seen any trouble with either SpyBot or AdAware displaying their menus and action-buttons properly. Rather than spend too much time searching through menus for a possible display or font setting that might be off, it might just be faster to uninstall/reinstall them (especially since they are both distributed free of charge for personal use).

You might want to visit an online scanner, too, like HouseCall, Ewido, or Panda - to double check that an uninvited visitor hasn't tried to compromise your security. Then run your local antivirus from Safe Mode with settings as thorough as possible. Just to be sure.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[... if you do find a quick-fix for the display problem (& it turns out not to be attack-related) - post it here, in case another user comes upon the same problem. ]

[EricZ]

Thanks Gary. I did those things you suggested before I came here for help. (SECURITY TANGO). I found 2 "uninvited visitors" w/ CAs av -win32 Fenhalgeneric and win32 sillydi/lc trogans. Found nothing w/ Stinger. Going to redo these things again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Will also try online scan too. Thanks for your input. P.S. this has also affected some of IM text but not numbers.

[GaryRouth]

Hi again

. . . if it turns out that the infections might have damaged a few fonts, you could try a run of System File Checker, and restore any missing fonts from your Windows CD (.cabs on the hard drive). It could be that the fonts are common ones, and not installed during the usual AdAware/SpyBot setup [probably just standard Windows fonts]. Sounds a little bit like the displays are trying to use a font like Windings (which has rectangles and other shapes). Here's a list of the default fonts installed with Windows 98 http://support.microsoft.com/default.../q195/7/08.asp
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Here's a little blurb from a site "WindowsGalore", about reinstalling just the default fonts (you could try just reinstalling the Marlett font first, and see if that does it) -->
Q: My system fonts do not seem to be working correctly, particularly on the dialogue boxes where I am asked to select one box or the other, the check boxes next to the items displays junk. There is a similar problem with the flyout menus where the more detail arrows should be. Is there any way to restore this without redoing the entire system?
A: The main system font is the Marlett font. Try installing or extracting that from the Windows 98 CD. If that doesn't work, you may have to install all the Win98 fonts. Quick tip: when you extract (use the System Information Utility), extract them to a temporary folder, not the Fonts folder. The fonts folder is actually only a compressed file. Once the font is extracted, go to the Fonts folder and click Install new fonts.
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It's also possible that instead of corrupting the fonts themselves, the infections made disruptive changes in the Registry. Tricky to get that fixed without knowing which program the font usually comes from (if it's a standard Windows font, though, that would be on the Windows Cd). You might be able to get some help from a Registry Cleaning program, such as RegClean 4.1 (from Microsoft - it works with both Win95 & Win98/98se - http://www.download.com/RegClean/300...ml?tag=lst-0-1 --but don't use RegClean if Office 2000 is installed on that computer, due to an incompatibility). Another cleaner often recommended is CCleaner http://www.download.com/CCleaner/300...ml?tag=lst-0-1

Hope it's one of the quick fixes.
. . . Gary

[EricZ]

Hi Gary. Thanks for your time and effort w/ my problem. No luck locating a critter that may have caused this. You've given me great info. I really appreciate the time you've taken. I'll post back when I have something. Thanks again!!!!

[skykissme]

Hi Eric, another one you can try, works better than that spybot or adaware in my case, is Yahoo Anti-Spy. It comes with Yahoo Messenger. Or you can go to http://toolbar.yahoo.com/ the tool bar can be manually turn off by right click on your menu bar on your web browser and unselect "Yahoo! Toolbar" Hope this help.

[EricZ]

Dear Gary, I had hoped that I would be able to report a definate cause to this problem BUT...... What ever was causing this problem, I think I made it very mad, after I tried to correct the fonts to no avail I shut it down for the night. At next power on the machine would not boot. This is my teenage sons machine and I have a feeling something came in w/ one of the many junk toolbars, browsers and various other crap he said YES to on line. I had told him many times what could happen from his surfing habits! Long story short...He believes me now. NUKED the hard drive, switched to XP and all is well. Lesson learned, no important info lost and a great excuse to finally step up to XP. Thanks again for your time!!!!