Fonts Folder being deleted each bootup of win2K

[Dagger Dirk]

WIN2K Fonts folder contents have been deleted with effect each reboot. That includes screen fonts (which causes the screen to totally scramble and become unintelligible hieroglyphic Sanskrit).

I had thought it was happening ONLY on reboot but just checked and the copies I'd placed there (from a font cache on the server) are now gone without having rebooted.

When it happened initially I found a subfolder in Winnt /fonts called "fonts" - and its contents were a true-type font called "myriad". That was deleted however the problem goes on.

I'm suspecting that:

a. it's a TROJAN (but TrendMicro's Housecall has found nix and Panda Antivirus is installed and self-updating).

b. that a faulty self-installing font has changed the fonts directory to winnt/fonts/fonts

c. that a bat or ini file or script is doing the mischief.

Anybody any ideas? Anything I might check in the registry?

DD

[ORAC]

If you have System Mechanic installed, search the Iolo knowledge base with the keyword fonts.
Otherwise, courtesy of here (http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/90884.html), the following seems to work:

"Ok Here is the fix. You will need to edit the registry. With this being said I will not take responsibility if you screw up.

1) Start Button.
2) Run type regedit.
3) Goto HKEY Local Machine.
4) Goto Software.
5) Goto Current Version.
6) See if you have a Fonts folder. If not then we will create a new key.
7) Right Click on "Current Version" on the same folder as (step5).
8) Select New Key.
9) Load all the fonts back in the control panel Fonts folder (from another machine).
10) Reboot."

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Dagger Dirk,

You might want to follow the Sticky at the top of the forum to rule out Viruses and Malware:

Guide for Eliminating Spyware, Adware, and Random Popups (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117136)

Take Care,

Richard

[Dagger Dirk]

It was system mechanic 4 (the fix is in the upgrade to ver 4.0g)
Slight amendments to clarify the instructions above:

1) Start Button.
2) Run type regedit.
3) Goto HKEY Local Machine.
4) Goto Software.
5) Goto Current Version.
i.e. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts)

6) See if you have a Fonts folder. If not then we will create a new key.
7) Right Click on "Current Version" on the same folder as (step5).
8) Select New Key. Call it fonts
9) Load all the fonts back in the control panel Fonts folder (from another machine).
just copy across using a couple of Explorer windows (the screen fonts loaded in memory will not
allow you to install over themselves - but that doesn't seem to matter
10) Reboot


Note: if your screen fonts are so scrambled that you cannot move around in windows, do it
alongside another good machine (for ease of Sanskrit nav) or you may need to connect to another machine (or off a server) copy the fonts into the windows/fonts directory

Obviously IOLO didn't carry out the most basic alpha testing of their new version.
That would have upset quite a few people around the globe.

Thanks for your able assistance in this. Let's hear it for the FONZ.

For the record I did Google it but for
some terminological reason failed to find the light of day