My grandfather was using his computer and he said it restarted on him, and when it came up it was in a different language, almost like Wingdings, and is not sure how to get it back, i tried going through the regional language settings to see if that was it, but it was not, were not sure where to go with this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

So far, we've tried changing the Units back English (US) and we've tried changing the Uni-code fonts back to English(US) and we still get Wingding style fonts....not sure what the heck is going on.

What OS? Can you use System Restore?

sorry forgot to add:

microsoft windows XP HOME

So have you tried System Restore yet?

lol this is the hard part...EVERYTHING IS IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, he lives in AZ so im trying to help him navigate the menus and such...lol

Just tried a system restore, and it said it was unable to restore his computer, so were stuck on that. he is going to try different dates to restore too, but im unsure what to do now!!

Can your grandfather just learn this new language?

Short of a format, I'm not sure what else can be done.

You might have him try running HijackThis from a floppy disk and, if it works, post the log in the virus forum to see if there's any indication of the problem there.

Hopefully someone else here will have some better ideas. Good luck!

Check the fonts installed on the computer ... I think all the fonts have been deleted.

good idea, but then how would i instruct him to them? i mean, if its all in scrably language he cant read it, also lend to the fact, that its very hard for him (he has a debilitating disease, which means he has to look at his hands as he clicks on things to make sure that he actually clicks the mouse) also, he said his email and some things are still in english, but most are not.

Can you use Remote Assistance and attempt to navigate yourself? (I actually thought you were already doing this since you said he was in AZ, implying you were somewhere else.)