windows displaying weird characters

Aside from sprinkle holy water and garlic on your computer, you could try changing the system font. You may have a corrupted font file.
 
It happened to me in Vista after a bad adobe update. Luckily in Vista, you just right click the font folder -> previous versions and it shows you which font files are missing/corrupted and you just restore them.

In your case you will need to determine which font is missing (probably all your arial fonts) and extract them from the XP cd (using the extract command from the command line) or copy the font folder from another XP system.
 
Thanks for the suggestions...

I got ahold of the fonts folder from another XP machine, but whenever I try to copy the files over, for all the arial fonts and a few others I get "Access Denied". I've tried from the Windows 'Explorer', from safe mode with command prompt, and from the recovery console. Any more ideas?
 
Ahh, that sounds like the problem then. The security settings are fubared on some system folders (probably your font folder)

So, you can right click the Font folder, security, advanced, replace permissions on all child objects -> ok / confirm ok. Reboot.
 
If you mean 'Sharing and Security', it says "all the options on this tab are disabled because this folder is used by the operating system" or something of that sort.
 
No there's the sharing and security tab and also a permissions/security tab. (sorry no XP box close by)

The tab may be hidden if you are running XP Home or have 'simple file sharing' enabled (from tools -> options -> views / last checkbox)
 
Thanks again for the help...

I somehow fixed it. But each time I reboot it reverts back to the weird looking characters and I have to copy the font files all over again...
 
Use Windows Defender or msconfig to see what's running when your computer starts up. Probably something there that's causing the problem.

While you're at it, update your antivirus app and run it. ( housecall.trendmicro.com for a free online virus scan if you're not using an AV)
 
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