character encoding keeps changing to Cyrillic in WinXP

[lanux128]

i noticed recently that i can't type certain characters without them being turned into Russian chars. i checked the regional settings then i looked at the character encoding on my browser and email programs and also my office programs but they all show as 'English - United States' or its equivalent (Western ISO 8859).

later while fiddling with the font settings, i found out that all the fonts' script has been changed to 'Cyrillic' instead of 'Western' (see pic). changing them back is now an issue because once i closed the dialog, it's reverted to Cyrillic encoding. so can someone help me with this problem?

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[muntealb]

Did you also check the language options ?

Regional and Language Options>Languages>Text Services>Details>Default input language

Regional and Language Options>Advanced>Language for non-Unicode programs

[lanux128]

yes i did but i couldn't find the 2nd item: "Language for non-Unicode programs". here are the screenshots from PC.

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[fenixproductions]

Just guessing...

1. Try to delete fonts cache file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\FNTCACHE.DAT) and restart your PC.

2. remove all non-english localisation settings (like Cyrillic support) and install again after restart,

3. export two registry keys and compare them with ones from correctly working Windows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Font

4. there is possibility that system fonts (System, Fixedsys, Small Fonts, MS Serif, MS Sans Serif, Courier, Arial CE, Courier New CE, Times New Roman CE, Helv, Tms Rmn) are corrupted, so you can always take them from other PC and install again,

[lanux128]

thanks fenix, will try out the suggestions..

[muntealb]

yes i did but i couldn't find the 2nd item: "Language for non-Unicode programs". here are the screenshots from PC.

It's easy to find it. There are 3 tabs in the main window (Regional and Language Options) :

Regional Options
Languages
Advanced

The setting for non-Unicode programs is in the Advanced tab.

[lanux128]

It's easy to find it. There are 3 tabs in the main window (Regional and Language Options) :

Regional Options
Languages
Advanced

The setting for non-Unicode programs is in the Advanced tab.

thanks i found it but the setting is the same as yours..

[lanux128]

Just guessing...

1. Try to delete fonts cache file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\FNTCACHE.DAT) and restart your PC.

no, it didn't work..

2. remove all non-english localisation settings (like Cyrillic support) and install again after restart,

i don't how to do this..

3. export two registry keys and compare them with ones from correctly working Windows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Font

i compared with another PC and they were almost the same except for some app-installed fonts.

4. there is possibility that system fonts (System, Fixedsys, Small Fonts, MS Serif, MS Sans Serif, Courier, Arial CE, Courier New CE, Times New Roman CE, Helv, Tms Rmn) are corrupted, so you can always take them from other PC and install again,

haven't got down to this yet, maybe i should have the repair CD on the standby..

[lanux128]

4. there is possibility that system fonts (System, Fixedsys, Small Fonts, MS Serif, MS Sans Serif, Courier, Arial CE, Courier New CE, Times New Roman CE, Helv, Tms Rmn) are corrupted, so you can always take them from other PC and install again,

haven't got down to this yet, maybe i should have the repair CD on the standby..

ok, i've also done this. i extracted the system fonts from the WinXP CD and installed them again but no avail. i did a full-system scan for malware but again came to nought. i'd been thinking of reinstalling windows if there can't be any other solution.