RESOLVED Pound Symbols not displaying consistently

[AlanHo]

Last week I installed the new MS Office 2003 30 day trial software - didn't like it and uninstalled it. This resulted in me having to reinstall MS Office XP but the reinstalled Outlook did not work properly including the fact that I was not able to send or receive Email. My amateur efforts to correct the problem which included recreating my dial up connections, reinstalling Office again, using Sytem Restore, messing with the registry and cussing - all failed to cure the problem which was made even worse - and I finished up having to reformat my C: drive, reinstall Windows XP Home and all my software.

Fortunately I take a daily incremental back-up of all my data files so I am back in business again with no loss of information. In fact things are better because the computer is now noticeably quicker - presumably the result of getting rid of all the redundant stuff that has accumulated over the last 2 years.

However - I am left with a minor but niggling problem - some web sites fail to display the sterling pound sign correctly. Instead of £ (the pound sign) I get J (capital jay). For example - my Barclaycard and Barclay bank accounts show the J symbol but HSBC and Tesco bank sites display correctly. Some web shopping sites are OK, others not.

This has only occurred since I reinstalled all my software and is a mystery.

Do any of our experts have an answer and cure. It would be appreciated.

[-pops-]

Hate to be the bearer of (potentially) bad news but were your incremental backups that you have restored from made when Office 2003 was in operation?

My thoughts are that whatever is causing this strange error of "J" instead of "£" is a result of Office 2003 no longer being installed but the backups expect it to be there.

Do you have a backup made before you installed Office 2003? If you do, you could perhaps do a repair of XP and then reload that backup.

As a point of interest (and this is of no use to you now but, could be in the future) I ALWAYS make a full system backup before installing any software. With a major change like installing trial versions of large and possibly invasive programs like office suites, I would ensure that I retained that backup until the trial was over and then, whatever the circumstances, re-install my system from that backup and be willing to forgo any changes I had made to files and data in that time.

Even in normal circumstances, I always have at least two full backups of my system one week apart and the oldest is sacrificed when it is time for renewal. I also keep a daily incremental backup (as you do) on a sacrificial basis. This means that I keep three daily backups and on the fourth day, the oldest is replaced.

You never know when disaster may strike!

As I intimated at the start, this is of no help to you at all but it may be useful in the future.

I hope someone comes along and offers some constructive help for you.

Good luck!

[AlanHo]

Pops

Thanks for your thoughts - I can tell you however that my back-ups were just "My Documents" files taken well before I installed Office 2003.

I simply fomatted the C: drive and then reinstalled all my software from original CD's plus downloading the latest patches from the various web sites. Then loaded my data back up files. This took ages.

For example Windows Xp needed SP1 (137 Mb which I had a CD for) plus 12 critical and 19 other patches amounting to 83 Mb.

Office XP required SP1 (18Mb) and SP2 (15 Mb) which I had on CD's plus downloading 6 files amounting to 7.4 Mb

McAfee anti virus programme downloaded 99 DAT files.

Its a good job I am on broadband.

Hence I am mystified why Internet Explorer is misbehaving - it is a fresh instal with no possibility of any old registry entries or shared files. The pound sign problem is a niggle rather than a serious problem and after wrestling with the computer for 2 days to reinstal all my software and drivers I am in no mood to start uninstalling and reinstalling things again.

It is interesting that the second paragraph of your message reads.......is causing this strange error of"J" instead of "J"............

I assumed you typed a pound sign but on my computer it does not appear.

Hmmmm.........

[bvw]

screen print.

[bvw]

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=di...&threadid=96756

Letter J instead of £ sign

PCA thread from 02/07/03.

(Resolved by installing a Ghost Image back up)

[-pops-]

How very odd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, as bvw shows, I did put a pound sign.

I'm mystified now. I was convinced that you had some remnants of the problem program somewhere that was interfering with your setup as it is now. From what you say, you should have a clean system and it may be that things aren't as bad as I thought but, how to get over them is more than my knowledge.

There are some very clever people come here - give them time to get in from work/college/whatever and I'm sure they'll do the best they can.

I am particularly interested in this, though, as I have just received my Office 2003 trial software and was going to load it today. As a result of what you have said, I'm very reluctant to do anything with it now. I've no intention of buying the full version so I'll give it a miss.

[-pops-]

bvw may have done it!!

(I'm not allowed in PCA so I can't check anything.)

[AlanHo]

Thanks for the info pops and bvw.

I had a look at the PCA thread and can see the guy only wriggled out of the problem by using an old ghost image. I do not have that facility.

I have checked the keyboard, language and regional settings - they are all UK English so I remain stumped. Even worse - when I visit the BBC news site - some pages show the "J" and others the £ pound symbol. This started out as a minor niggle but is fast turning into a crusade - its really getting to me so I hope someone has a remedy (but please not a format and reinstall)

[nellie2]

I have been googling around and have managed to find very little on this problem. However, it could have something to do with how the html is viewed by by you especially if Java is involved somewhere. If this is a new install I am assuming you don't have any Java stuff installed. See this thread and update your Java and see if that does any good........ worth a try!

http://www.windowsforum.org/support/forum/...?showtopic=7188

[AlanHo]

Nellie

Thanks so much for your input, it was a nice try - but it didn't work - I installed the Java software but it has made no difference. I am still the random victim of "J"'s instead of "£"s.

I never thought I would welcome us joining the Euro - it seems to be the only way out of my problem at present.

[bvw]

I've recently gone back to using Opera and prefer it to Internet Explorer alan.

As you're on broadband it wouldn't take 5mins to install. It would be interesting to see if those web sites still caused you problems in Opera.

[AlanHo]

At last I have sorted the problem.

I rebooted the computer from the Windows XP CD and chose the option to "Set Up Windows"

I then chose the option to repair Windows. Not being very computer literate I was worried that I may be getting myself into more trouble - but the repair went smoothly and I seem to have lost none of my settings, desktop layout etc.

At last - no more "J" symbols instead of the pound symbol. It appears that the previous reinstall of Windows and IE6 was in some way corrupt.

Hence this thread is now RESOLVED (but I don't know how to mark it as such)

[-pops-]

Good! Pleased you have it sorted out.

It may have been that there were other things wrong with your previous installation that you didn't see so a repair may be more significant than it appears to be.