Deleting 'invalid' font registry keys has messed up fonts
Usmanatron
I was cleaning up the registry on my computer, with a brand new tool!
The program found loads of invalid font strings. I decided to go through
them and delete them if they didn't seem important.
However, I managed to press 'delete all' accidentally, which resulted in all
of them being wiped (painfully, it didn't ask for confirmation).
You would think this would not be a problem, but its really made a mess of
my fonts in many of my programs.
All of the fonts have changed into a much larger bold font which
consequently comes off the screen.
To add insult to injury, the program did not make any backups, and in fact
has no provision for backing up (thats the last time Im using that!)
I have tried as many things as I can think of. I have used the appearances
tab in display to change all of the message boxes, but this has not worked.
I have tried reinstalling the offending software, but that has not worked
either. In fact, the installer had the 'fat font' problem too. This makes
me believe that there is some system-wide registry entry(s) that controls
fonts.
Does anyone know if what i assume is true? If so, what is the best way to
fix it? I'll try anything, because this font is really getting on my nerves.
What I did find (before removing them all) was that most of them pointed to
the Arial font. I found this string missing in
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\fonts. I have since added it,
but that hasn't helped unfortunately. Are there any more places like this in
the registry?
Finally, is there any way I could possibly use the Windows 2000 disc to
rebuild this portion of the registry? Im all up for drastic ideas, since my
profile got corrupted a couple of days ago. I've nothing to lose :)
Thank you very much for reading this (I waffle on a bit!) and thanks in
advance for any help you can give me
Regards
Usmanatron
John John
How to perform an in-place upgrade of Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292175
John
Usmanatron
Unfortunately, I cannot reinstall the font(s) in question, since they
already still exist. The registry keys are the pieces that are messed up.
I tried to do an in place repair, however, in one word, it went
'disasterously'.
It seems the problem is because I have a SATA drive and an IDE drive. My
Windows installation was on my SATA drive and marked C:, however setup
detected my IDE drive as C:, instead of my SATA drive.
Now, the Win2K drive thinks it is D:\, while all of the programs are looking
for C:\... so now everythings broke.
Just to add insult to injury, I cannot even see if the fonts have been
repaired, since all of the programs which were suffering from the problem all
don't work.
I know you can change the drive letter of your system disk using some funny
method, but to be honest I think it would be better to start again on a clean
slate.
I've decided Im going to format the whole thing and start again.
Thankfully, windows still boots, so I can move everything else I would like
to keep onto my 'work' drive painlessly. I've got half term holidays for a
week, so that should be plenty of time to get it back to its former self.
I appreciate the help John John. Its a shame it didn't go to plan :)
Regards
Usman
John John
drives you have to press F6 very early on during the setup routine, you
will see a prompt at the bottom of the screen telling you to "Press F6
to install Mass Storage Drivers...", you only have a short bit of time
to press the key, if you miss the prompt you have to reboot and restart
the setup program. You MUST supply the SATA drivers on a floppy
diskette, the setup program will not accept them on any other media
source. The setup program will almost always favour and see active
partitions on IDE drives as C instead of the ones on the SATA drives. I
always recommend that users disconnect or disable the IDE drive in the
BIOS while they install Windows on SATA drive, the IDE drive can be
introduced after Windows is installed. If you disconnect the IDE drive
and try the above you may still be able to salvage the installation...
I think that now, after this episode with "Registry Cleaners" or
"Registry Fixers", you will understand why almost no one with experience
recommends their use. The potential destruction caused by these things
is simply not worth the non existent benefit that they claim to provide.
Many users have been left with perfectly good Windows installations
completely destroyed after using some of these worthless products.
John
John John
John John
entries, the link below is for XP and some of the entries refer to fonts
that are not present in Windows 2000. These are the Font Entries for
Windows 2000 along with other required font keys that are installed with
Windows 2000:
=========================================================================
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Font
Drivers]
"Adobe Type Manager"="atmfd.dll"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontDPI]
"LogPixels"=dword:00000060
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontMapper]
"ARIAL"=dword:00000000
"COURIER"=dword:00008800
"COURIER NEW"=dword:00008000
"FIXEDSYS"=dword:00009000
"MS SANS SERIF"=dword:00001000
"MS SERIF"=dword:00005000
"SMALL FONTS"=dword:00000800
"SYMBOL"=dword:00004002
"SYMBOL1"=dword:0000a002
"TIMES NEW ROMAN"=dword:00004000
"WINGDINGS"=dword:00000002
"WINGDINGS2"=dword:00008002
"DEFAULT"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Roman (All res)"="ROMAN.FON"
"Script (All res)"="SCRIPT.FON"
"Modern (All res)"="MODERN.FON"
"Arial (TrueType)"="ARIAL.TTF"
"Arial Bold (TrueType)"="ARIALBD.TTF"
"Arial Bold Italic (TrueType)"="ARIALBI.TTF"
"Arial Italic (TrueType)"="ARIALI.TTF"
"Courier New (TrueType)"="COUR.TTF"
"Courier New Bold (TrueType)"="COURBD.TTF"
"Courier New Bold Italic (TrueType)"="COURBI.TTF"
"Courier New Italic (TrueType)"="COURI.TTF"
"Lucida Console (TrueType)"="LUCON.TTF"
"Lucida Sans Unicode (TrueType)"="L_10646.TTF"
"Times New Roman (TrueType)"="TIMES.TTF"
"Times New Roman Bold (TrueType)"="TIMESBD.TTF"
"Times New Roman Bold Italic (TrueType)"="TIMESBI.TTF"
"Times New Roman Italic (TrueType)"="TIMESI.TTF"
"WingDings (TrueType)"="WINGDING.TTF"
"Symbol (TrueType)"="SYMBOL.TTF"
"Symbol 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)"="SYMBOLE.FON"
"Verdana (TrueType)"="verdana.TTF"
"Verdana Bold (TrueType)"="verdanab.TTF"
"Verdana Italic (TrueType)"="verdanai.TTF"
"Verdana Bold Italic (TrueType)"="verdanaz.TTF"
"Arial Black (TrueType)"="ariblk.TTF"
"Comic Sans MS (TrueType)"="comic.TTF"
"Comic Sans MS Bold (TrueType)"="comicbd.TTF"
"Georgia (TrueType)"="georgia.TTF"
"Georgia Bold (TrueType)"="georgiab.TTF"
"Georgia Bold Italic (TrueType)"="georgiaz.TTF"
"Georgia Italic (TrueType)"="georgiai.TTF"
"Palatino Linotype (TrueType)"="pala.TTF"
"Palatino Linotype Bold (TrueType)"="palab.TTF"
"Palatino Linotype Bold Italic (TrueType)"="palabi.TTF"
"Palatino Linotype Italic (TrueType)"="palai.TTF"
"Tahoma Bold (TrueType)"="tahomabd.TTF"
"Trebuchet MS (TrueType)"="trebuc.TTF"
"Trebuchet MS Bold (TrueType)"="trebucbd.TTF"
"Trebuchet MS Bold Italic (TrueType)"="trebucbi.TTF"
"Trebuchet MS Italic (TrueType)"="trebucit.TTF"
"Webdings (TrueType)"="webdings.TTF"
"Tahoma (TrueType)"="TAHOMA.TTF"
"Microsoft Sans Serif Regular (TrueType)"="MICROSS.TTF"
"Garamond (TrueType)"="Gara.ttf"
"Garamond Bold (TrueType)"="Garabd.ttf"
"Garamond Italic (TrueType)"="Garait.ttf"
"Bookman Old Style (TrueType)"="Bookos.ttf"
"Bookman Old Style Bold Italic (TrueType)"="Bookosbi.ttf"
"Bookman Old Style Bold (TrueType)"="bookosb.ttf"
"Bookman Old Style Italic (TrueType)"="Bookosi.ttf"
"Impact (TrueType)"="impact.ttf"
"Mistral (TrueType)"="mistral.ttf"
"Arial Narrow (TrueType)"="arnar.ttf"
"Arial Narrow Italic (TrueType)"="arnari.ttf"
"Arial Narrow Bold (TrueType)"="arialnb.ttf"
"Arial Narrow Bold Italic (TrueType)"="arialnbi.ttf"
"Wingdings 2 (TrueType)"="wingdng2.ttf"
"MT Extra (TrueType)"="mtextra.ttf"
"Courier 10,12,15 (VGA res)"="COURE.FON"
"MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)"="SERIFE.FON"
"MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)"="SSERIFE.FON"
"Small Fonts (VGA res)"="SMALLE.FON"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"Arial CE,238"="Arial,238"
"Arial CYR,204"="Arial,204"
"Arial Greek,161"="Arial,161"
"Arial TUR,162"="Arial,162"
"Courier New CE,238"="Courier New,238"
"Courier New CYR,204"="Courier New,204"
"Courier New Greek,161"="Courier New,161"
"Courier New TUR,162"="Courier New,162"
"Helv"="MS Sans Serif"
"Helvetica"="Arial"
"MS Shell Dlg 2"="Tahoma"
"Times"="Times New Roman"
"Times New Roman CE,238"="Times New Roman,238"
"Times New Roman CYR,204"="Times New Roman,204"
"Times New Roman Greek,161"="Times New Roman,161"
"Times New Roman TUR,162"="Times New Roman,162"
"Tms Rmn"="MS Serif"
"MS Shell Dlg"="Microsoft Sans Serif"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize]
"FIXEDFON.FON"="vgafix.fon"
"FONTS.FON"="vgasys.fon"
"OEMFONT.FON"="vgaoem.fon"
"DisableRemoteFontBootCache"=dword:00000000
=========================================================================
Usmanatron
Thank you very much for your repeated help with this.
Unfortuantely for me, I have only just read your post now... after
installing a fresh copy of Windows :(.
Looking at those reg keys, they were probably what I accidentally removed.
Oh well, as they say: you win some, you lose some ;)
You are absolutely right about the third party driver... I remember it took
me ages to work that one out. When reinstalling, I did in fact do exactly
what you recommended; disconnected the IDE drive.
You're certainly right, I will never touch any 'registry cleaning' software
ever again.
Thanks again for your help, much appreciated :)
John John
John