Problems with Internet Explorer 8 suddenly having tiny font size almost impossible to read

Dear viewers,

I don't know how many of you may have experienced this problem.

All of a sudden, font size in text boxes on Internet Explorer and some other browser and even regular programs and applications installed in your computer become so small that you can hardly read the text. The same happens when you try to input text for a search on Google, Yahoo etc.,it is so minuscule and hard to read. The font in the buttons under text boxes is so small and barely readable ...all other text is fine.

The problem with the tiny fonts is not just limited to text boxes in web pages. The tiny fonts are also displayed in windows for local applications like the control center for Norton Internet Security and others.

These issues seem to show sometimes after a Windows update, installation or un-installation of a program or application, or even more frustrating for no apparent reason...

In some cases, the "tiny" fonts show within various applications, seemingly not caused by the applications themselves since it happens in unrelated programs; and even more frustrating, many of the programs fonts are just fine, only a select few are very, very small.

I had never experienced this issue, (until last week), in a computer I built for a friend of mine. I transferred all the files and data from her old computer to the new computer I built, using a very handy program by Microsoft, called "Windows Easy Transfer".

This program is very useful because it does away with having to copy all files and data from the old computer to the new, one by one. It saves a lot of aggravation and saves a lot of time in the process too.

All went well but the following day my friend called me and said, "George I don't know what is wrong, but when I try to fill out my name and address in certain text boxes, the font is so small I cannot read it! Also some text boxes within Internet Explorer have so tiny letters I can't read what they say!"

I went to her house to check all of this, made some notes and then "googled" the issue in my computer after I came back to my office.

After looking at hundreds of comments from people in several forums , complaining about this issue and asking for help, who found no solution for the problem I finally came across a comment from a forum member who calls himself "Wireless Dude" who said:

"I had the same problem just this evening and started to thoroughly investigate the problem. Earlier in the evening I had just un-installed an application, when the problem started. After about an hour of sniffing around my Windows Vista install, I noticed that a lot of my fonts in my Windows/Fonts directory had been deleted! I re-installed the fonts, copying the directory from another computer, (the installation is invoked automatically when you simply copy the fonts into the Windows/Fonts directory).

The key fonts that had been deleted were "Arial", "Courrier New", "New Times Roman", etc. Such fonts are heavily used throughout Windows operating systems.

Once I had re-installed the fonts, everything went back to normal and menus were not displaying the "tiny fonts" that many users have been experiencing after a weird anomaly like this occurs"

As you can imagine, the first thing I did was to copy the Windows/Fonts directory from my computer to a flash memory stick, called my friend, went to her house, re-installed the Windows/Fonts directory in her new computer I had built for her and PRESTO!!! all was back to normal.

She said, "George you really are a computer guru", to which I responded, "had it not been the smarts of an unknown fellow who goes by the name of "Wireless Dude" on the Internet, it would have taken me, God know how long, to find a solution to this problem so many are having and not finding a solution.

As far as I know, Microsoft has not addressed any solution for the problem,( maybe they have), but I have not seen it anywhere.

Well, for you folks who may have this problem in your computers and have been living with it for a while, I hope this will be of help.

By the way, if you cannot copy the Windows/Fonts directory from another computer, you can download the fonts directly from http://www.microsoft.com/.

Have fun and PLEASE let me know, (those who may have this problem), how you managed.

Thanks,

George Freire