Font(s) fouled up

Big problem. On my new machine I've been setting up a dual boot, W7 first and then XPsp3 added so I can use a few programs that cannot run in W7. So I wanted to include my old XP font collection in the new setup. I copied all the fonts directly into the new XP's font folder, overwriting whatever. Zam, blam, after rebooting XP some of the fonts the os uses were replaced by strange geometric symbols. These include the font(s) for the word Start, the font for the choices at the top of the start panel screen, for much of the control panels introductory screen, the font used in the title bar in all open programs, the 'windows is shutting down now screen' and the screen where you choose which user the os will set up for when booting. Is there any way to fix this situation without reinstalling XP?

First off, the SOP is to install the oldest version of Windows first, followed by the newer, but I don't think this has anything to do with the font issue. I'm a bit confused as to what you said that you wanted to do, and what you said that you did. If you wanted to include XP fonts in Windows 7, why do you say that you copied Window 7 fonts in XP? When you boot to Windows 7, do you experience any font issue that way?

Easy, just reinstall your XP fonts. I assume you saved them somewhere before destroying them.

whs said:

Easy, just reinstall your XP fonts. I assume you saved them somewhere before destroying them.

Click to expand...

Maybe you're right, I never thought of anyone removing the standard fonts, only adding to them.

I installed W7 first because I partition my drives and didn't want XP install changing the drive letters of the later partitions, down to letter M. So XP when installed became drive O which is what I wanted since eventually I will be deleting the XP partition when I have the money to upgrade the programs that won't work with W&, eg. Photoshop CS2. What I did is that I wanted to have my old XP fonts in the new XP. So I overwrote the new XP font folder with the old. This has nothing to do with the W7 fonts as I left them alone after seeing what happened with XP. WHS, are you saying I should just overwrite them once again to try to fix things?

If you have the ones that were there in the first place, I would put them back.

No, I don't. Any way to extract them from the install disk without reinstalling? I remember in the good old days there was an extract command that could do it if you knew the right file. Edit: I googled the problem and there are solutions, expanding the install files is one. I'll try to fix it tomorrow and let you all know. Thanks for everyone's replies.

I wonder if part of the problem is the "type" of font you used? Were the fonts a mix of "OpenType" and "TrueType?"

Here is some basic info on fonts that I hope helps a little...

Installing Fonts in Windows : MyFonts

In part it states this...
System Requirements

• OpenType fonts work with Windows XP and Windows 2000.
  
  TrueType fonts work with all versions of the Windows operating system.

piiax said:

Big problem. On my new machine I've been setting up a dual boot, W7 first and then XPsp3 added so I can use a few programs that cannot run in W7. So I wanted to include my old XP font collection in the new setup. I copied all the fonts directly into the new XP's font folder, overwriting whatever. Zam, blam, after rebooting XP some of the fonts the os uses were replaced by strange geometric symbols. These include the font(s) for the word Start, the font for the choices at the top of the start panel screen, for much of the control panels introductory screen, the font used in the title bar in all open programs, the 'windows is shutting down now screen' and the screen where you choose which user the os will set up for when booting. Is there any way to fix this situation without reinstalling XP?

Click to expand...

If I understand this; you are saying you just copied the FONTS from OLD XP install to the NEW XP install, and you did not install them?

(i.e. copy m:\Old\windows\fonts\*.* q:\new\windows\fonts)
Or
From Windows 7 via Windows Explorer

If you did the fonts did not install and will not work. What you need to do is open "Windows Explorer" While booted in the NEW XP and copy and paste the fonts. Windows will ask you if you want to install the fonts.

If you get an error that the font already exists I think you can re-install. If not you may have to manually delete the fonts from the NEW install and then do the copy and paste.

Well, this has become something of a disaster. Sorry not to have replied sooner and sorry for the long reply. !st off in Win7 I created an image backup of the 2 os partitions,7 & XP. Seeing how many fonts possibly were involved I decided to try to repair XP so the fonts would be fixed (that was one of the methods I found when googling.) But XP repair insisted on knowing the administrator password and since I never had one, it wouldn't go any further. I even went back and created one but that didn't work. So, knowing I had the image backup I said what the hell and deleted the XP partition in order to do a reinstall. Numerous times I tried to get XP to start installing, but there was always some complaint about the partition not being right for an xp install. So I got out the image backup and ran it. TG Win7 was ok, but when I tried loading XP, no go: hal.dll was missing. So bye bye XP. This morning I ran into a computer wiz type guy and he said it was the boot record that was preventing xp to re-install, and that I could fix it with msconfig. Well, no joy there, and then I used EasyBCD to get rid of the XP entry in the boot manager, but still no joy. So looking at this blank partition using 7's partition manager I saw that it's volume description in properties was "Partition Style: master boot record MBR". So I guess I would somehow need to fix this and I've been trying to read up about it, perhaps using SuperDisk to alter the partition, but know that the "cure" may be worse than the disease.

Do you have multiple harddrives? If so, I always recommend that each OS be installed on a drive of it's own, while all other drives are disconnected, until the installation is finished. This method eliminates any problems such as you are having now. The primary difference is that it eliminates the need for a boot loader and having to deal with fixing the MBR. You would use the F8 BBS Popup Menu to select a drive to boot instead of an OS.

I do have 2 hds. The 2nd is from my former xp machine and filled with a lot of stuff I'd hate losing but I guess I'll try that after exploring a bit with the fix mbr possibility. Thanks for the suggestion!

Harddrives are cheap, expecially if you get one just big enough to hold XP. To keep from losing anything, it might be worth a few dollars for another. If you got a bigger one, the extra space could probably be put to good use for extra storage.

I shrunk the 2nd partition on the 2nd hd and will try to install xp in the free space left. We'll see how it goes. I should get a new hd anyway as this one is fairly old.

Trying it on the 2nd hd didn't work either. I must be doing something wrong that I don't see, or maybe the mbr situation has everything messed up. I've ordered a new hd and will do a clean XP install on that. Thanks everyone for your replies and help! Really appreciated.

Assuming that second drive is good, and you attempted to install XP on it, while it is the only drive connected, I fail to understand what the problem is. If it does have to do with a previous installations MBR being on it, there are programs, like this one:

Free Erase MBR (Master Boot Record), Delete all partitions, Clear MBR Virus - Super Fdisk

There are others, I just picked the first one on the Google search. If you erased the MBR, I can't imagine why there would be an installation problem, other than some kind of user error, and a new harddrive won't fix that.

I tried it both with the 1st hd connected and not connected. I am nervous about erasing the mbr. Would I do it with both drives connected? I know I have the backup disk image for Win7 on disk 1, but what happens when you erase the mbr? Does it just get remade? On disk 1 as well as disk 2? Also, the image of Win7 is stored on disk 2. Just checked your link Seekermeister, and see that all partition information is erased too. I have too much data on these drives from my old XP to do that. I think I'll wait for the new hd, do a clean xp install on it alone and then try to dual it with the Win7 hd. Will this be possible?

No, I would not connect the W7 drive while erasing the MRB of the other drive, to eliminate any possibility of something going wrong. If there is any data in other partititons of the drive, copy/backup the file elsewhere. That way, you should be able to work with the drive without fear. I did not read the details, but I'm fairly sure that program that I linked would be run on boot, now from an operating OS.

OK. I can move all the files to disk 1, redo an image to disk 1 and then try fixing disk 2. I'll let you know.

Back again. I ran Super FDisk at first with both drives connected just to see what it would say, with no intention of making any changes. There were lots of partition errors on both disks like the partitions were beginning where they weren't supposed to. So I got out, disconnected drive 1, fixed drive 2 by removing partitions and mbr, and finally XP installed without problem. Then when I reattached drive 1, the bios set up so that the xp drive was #1 and loaded without my being able to access the drive with Win7. My gigabyte mb's bios allows you to save different versions, so I reinstalled the original bios settings and now Win7 drive came up 1st. Yea! Then, and here's where things got messed up again, I used EasyBCD to write a new mbr to load XP. First I saved it as the 'O' drive because that was the letter given to the drive when I loaded 7's partition manager. When I rebooted I was given the choice of 7 or xp as expected, but when choosing xp there was an error, it couldn't load and asked if I wanted to try to repair using the install disk. So maybe it wanted to be 'C' drive and I tried that with EasyBCD. That gave me a no hal.dll error, can't load. So what do I do now?