Corrupt Fonts / Cyrillic displayed instead of Helvetica

Hello :) I've posted this at another forum but they didn't have any answers at all, so I'm coming to you guys and I really hope someone can shed some light onto this.


My level of experience is beginner to intermediate, depending. I've copied and pasted from the previous forum as it's set up neatly:

Problem: I naively replaced my current fonts folder with a backup from my Windows 7 RTM build fonts folder -- as I had just upgraded. Now, firefox is incorrectly displaying Helvetica (I believe that's the culprit) font at larger/normal size and not reverting to Arial once I remove Helvetica. Cyrillic characters show instead of the actual text, unless I zoom out the font.

Operating System, Version and Service Pack: Windows 7 Ultimate.

Web Browser and Version: Firefox 3.5.8 (3.6 does the same thing, so I just reverted back so I can at least use my theme).

Your level of experience: Intermediate-ish. I know my way around the PC and know how to do most troubleshooting things.

When did the problem start? Has it been going on constantly since then? It started yesterday after re-installing Windows 7 (installed a new mb, cpu and hdd) and then installing Firefox, as well as a copy of my old Fonts folder (the latter never caused trouble when I first went to Windows 7 last October).

Any steps you've taken to troubleshoot? I've attempted to remove Helvetica (as well as Helvetica Neue -- the latter which I cannot delete because it is 'in use), Arial, Calibri and any other potential 'corrupt' fonts that the Firefox tech help forum said 'could' be the culprit, rebooted. Still nothing. Deleted FNTCACHE.dat, rebooted. Nothing. Upgraded Firefix to 3.6, nothing. Updated motherboard and graphics drivers. I'm at a loss.


It happens on WoW_Ladies: Girl Gamers of World of Warcraft (yes I'm a Warcraft player ;p), Twitter, Tumblr and any site using Helvetica, Calibri, Myriad Pro, etc. I also have ran a font checking program that's saying 80% of my fonts are corrupt, not installed properly or not entered in the registry.

I just want to replace my current fonts folder with the old one, since I cannot delete any fonts. I have a disc I can do a repair install on, if that will work.


Screenshot uploaded below. Thank you to anyone that can help. I've been banging my head over this for a week no to no avail.

I suppose the other forum suggested running an SFC /scannow from an elevated command prompt?

If that doesn't work, perhaps right click on the folder and select "restore previous"..

Restore previous only has the last week, dated to the 28th of Feb and I changed things on the 26th. There's no restore point there that I'm seeing, unfortunately, and the other forum didn't suggest a thing at all. I had no replies :\ I've never done a SFC /scannow. I've never heard of it. Will it mess anything up, or should I back up what little has been put on the main drive since?



EDIT: I did a SFC/scannow and it said it didn't find anything.

Is Firefox the only one you are having problems with?

In Firefox, tools, Content tab, what do you show for Default font, and have you tried another one?

Also check the advanced button to see if anything looks strange there.

Default is Times New Roman, and I've tried everything down to unchecking 'allow pages to use their own fonts'. It seems to only happen on sites who're using .em for font sizes and Helvetica, Cambria, Calibri, Myriad Pro fonts.

I also ran a font program that told me every single font I installed was corrupt, but I don't have a copy of the original Fonts folder to try and replace via safe mode.

If you know one for sure you think is corrupt, perhaps go to the Windows\winsxs folder and find the backup fonts. The should be listed microsoft-windows-font-.... . If you are on a x64 system, put amd64_ in front. Try replacing the know bad font with a good one.

I have not tried myself, so I do not know what type of permissions you might need. It looks like if you open the folder and right click on a particular font, it will give you the option to install with a UAC shield.

Another option would be to do a repair install...

AFAIK, since it's not even allowing me to delete them and I have... upwards to 950+ fonts now installed, I don't know what the defaults were entirely. I do design so it has been years since I've seen a Fonts folder without anything bought/downloaded/created XD



I'm thinking a repair install might be my only option, unless I can just extract the Fonts folder and replace via Safe Mode? Or find a copy somewhere (risky).

Much thanks on getting back to me quickly. I can barely do a thing online I should be doing, so I've nothing but time to try and fix this, haha.

Simple- for some reason firefox will not show times font unless you have "times new roman" as your default font on your computer.