Have you tried using system restore? It's a last resort, but it's worth a shot if you're really desperate. Hopefully you haven't disabled it in Windows XP.
I've read that others have had similar experiences with Windows XP Professional, and everything was okay when the "Windows Classic" (default) theme had been used, so you might want to give that a go (leaving behind your themes that are in use, if any).
Also, are you sure you don't have any corrupt fonts by any chance? Try opening a few fonts in Word or viewing them in your Windows root directory, usually \Windows\Fonts\ (Or WINNT\Fonts for Windows 2000 users), seeing if they are able to be displayed in italics instead of the normal display style, and vice versa (From normal to italics, and italics to normal, play around with the settings). I've read somewhere about font substitution problems, so the solution to this would be to check ALL of your fonts (you can change the way files are previewed in Windows Explorer) and check to see if the "regular" version of common fonts such as Arial/Times New Roman/Courier etc are corrupt. (You can also view fonts in Control Panel --> Fonts). Corrupt fonts will not be previewed/sampled. That will help you decide which ones are "good" and which ones are corrupt.
What's your default system font? Tahoma? Again, try going into Display Properties, Appearance (tab), Advance (button), making sure everything is set to be displayed as you'd like it. (It's been said before, but after hitting 'Ok' -- make sure you hit 'Apply', followed by 'Ok'). Also, make sure that once you're in "Advanced", use the drop down menu and click the item named "Icon". Make sure this one in particular doesn't have Italics set, in the bottom right hand corner (it's a button,
I). Make sure that the italic-button "I" isn't recessed/active ("pushed in/down"). It looks greyed out and "un-clickable", but you might miss it on first-glance.
It wouldn't do you any harm if you were to restart the laptop after changes have been made to the system. This ensures that the changes would have been saved and implemented upon rebooting.
If you've got another XP machine (desktop for example), it might be worth a shot to copy over all the fonts from another Windows XP machine, finding the \Windows\Fonts\ directory, and copying it back onto your laptop (if it's connected to a LAN or home network).
That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I'll have a think about it throughout the day
/Edit I hate having untidy posts, so I ended up capitalising and formalising this post. D'oh!
You might want to take a look in Internet Explorer's menus up top. View --> Encoding. Check the settings there, if they haven't been played around with. They should be set to "Unicode (UTF-8)", or you can have it set to "Western European (Windows)" and just above that you could set it to "Auto Select".
Further, from the Tools --> Internet Options menu, click on the "Fonts" button down below. Make sure you've got the proper language script selected (it should be Latin based). Also in the "Web Page Font" just on the left hand side of the same window, you should have Times New Roman set, with a plain text font of Courier. There was something else I had read somewhere, where you'd change the "Web Page Font" and "Plain Text Font" to something else other than Times New Roman and Courier respectively, and then hitting Ok --> Ok. After this, you'd change back to Times New Roman and Courier (or whatever font you're comfortable using). This seemed to have solved another person's problem with
italicised text.
Maybe you've got some accessibility option enabled, that you dont know of? (Or somebody has been playing a cruel joke on you by changing some settings? It could happen). For example, go to Tools --> Internet Options --> Accessibility (button). Make sure nothing is ticked accidentally. That is, the "Formatting" and "User Style Sheet" isn't ticked to override any webpage settings and styles that are being used.
Also, if you're really out of luck, try doing a Repair Installation, (not a complete or partial reinstall of Windows itself). Boot from the Install CD, and choose to "Repair The Existing Windows Installation". It should be completed by pushing the "R" key. This will be faster than a reinstall (or a complete wipe/format and clean install of Windows XP). That should copy over all the default fonts from the Windows XP CD, onto your disk, leaving your existing settings alone. Repair installations will generally solve most problems with corrupt installs and/or corrupt files.
Other people have had font problems after installing and uninstalling freeware applications, with system restore usually fixing the problem. You might like to try that avenue, before exploring others.
My final recommendation is to boot into Safe Mode (hit F8 upon startup), making sure that you've got any original restore cds (from your laptop OEM) or any other installation cds, and get into the command prompt. This can also be done via the standard or "normal" Windows mode.
Start, Run, "cmd" (without the quotation marks).
Then type:
sfc /scannow
This will check all of your system files and its integrity, so be sure to have your Windows XP CD on hand.
Just on another note, I've been reading that a few other people have had similar problems with Windows 98, XP Professional and so on. Some how or another, the problem dissappears as quickly as it appeared, so I'm hoping this is the case for you.
Another alternative would be to hit F8 on startup, and selecting "Last Known Good Configuration" -- if that doesn't do it, then i'll be damned.
Paying a visit to Microsoft's Topography website might give you some websites where, if you've identified the corrupt font, you're able to download and restore corrupt fonts. It might be worth a look:
Microsoft's Topography Website
Also, another solution you could try, is to browse to your \Windows\Fonts directory and hit F5 to refresh the directory listing. It may or may not help, but this is support coming from Microsoft themselves (which is saying something!). I just thought I'd include it here, as every little bit counts.
This has got to be the mother of all solutions. Download TweakUI (A powertoy for Windows).
Tweak UI Install it, and run Tweak UI from the start menu (it will create program shortcuts for you). Start, All Programs, Powertoys for Windows XP, Tweak UI for Windows XP. On the left hand side menu, the very last option you see will be "Repair". On the pull-down menu, select the menu item entitled: "Repair Font Folder" and click on "Repair Now". That should be it. *Fingers crossed*
To sum up:
* System Restore.
* Reverting back to the default "Windows Classic" theme.
* Testing out existing fonts and seeing if you're able to change from italics to normal, and vice versa. Corrupt font files will not preview/open. (That narrows it down for you).
* Going into Display Properties, Appearance (tab), Advanced (button), making sure any changes are to be "Applied" (by hitting Apply), then OK. Also, make sure that once you're in "Advanced", use the drop down menu and click the item named "Icon". Make sure this one in particular doesn't have Italics set, in the bottom right hand corner. (That is, the button isn't recessed and active, or "pushed in").
* Restarting the system and booting into Safe Mode, or restarting back into Normal Mode from there (This has been known to suddenly fix/repair itself for some users).
* Copying over the font directory (\Windows\Fonts\) from another machine, desktop or laptop (I'm not sure if you'll be able to copy files directly from the install CD however).
* In Internet Explorer, --> View, Encoding. Changing the fonts to and from Times New Roman/Courier (Plain text). Changing the settings back to these fonts after switching to another font.
* In Internet Explorer, --> Tools, Internet Options, Fonts (button).
* In Internet Explorer, --> Tools, Internet Options, Accessibility (button).
* Repair installation.
* Checking to see if you've installed any freeware apps, or if you've recently uninstalled any freeware applications.
* Testing system file integrity, by getting into command prompt, "sfc /scannow", making sure you've got all your install/restore CDs on standby.
* Hitting F8 on startup and selecting "Last Known Good Configuration".
* Visiting Microsoft's Topography Website.
* Hitting F5 in \Windows\Fonts\ to refresh the listing.
* Installing TweakUI and repairing your Fonts Folder.
Lastly, if all else fails,
* You'll have to format the laptop and clean install Windows XP Home again, making sure you back up all of your important data/files/songs and so on
