Forum Discussion
On Win 10, Gibberish Text Appeared in System Menus and Wi-Fi Settings
My Windows 10 system has suddenly started displaying garbled, nonsensical text in place of normal English labels across various system menus, including the Start menu, right-click context options, and even the Wi-Fi settings panel, where connection names and status messages appear as random symbols and foreign characters that I cannot read or understand. I haven't installed any new language packs or changed regional settings recently, and I've already tried restarting my computer and running the system file checker, but the gibberish persists, so I'm hoping someone can help me identify whether this is caused by a corrupt system font, a recent Windows update glitch, or perhaps a deeper issue like malware that's interfering with the display language settings.
2 Replies
Corrupted fonts can cause gibberish text. You can try resetting fonts to default by deleting the font cache or reapplying default fonts via registry tweaks.
That sounds like corrupted system resources, fonts, or a language/region setting that got scrambled. I’d first check Settings > Time & Language and confirm the display language, region, and administrative language settings look correct.
Then run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth followed by sfc /scannow. I’d also create a new local user profile as a test. If the new profile looks normal, your original profile may be damaged. If both profiles show the same issue, it is more likely system-file or font corruption.
