PROBLEM: Text in message boxes and dialogs uses unreadable characters

Article ID: 010511sab
Last Reviewed: July 10, 2023

The information in this article applies to:

Symptoms

All of the following:

  • Text in buttons on the print preview screens is unreadable.
  • Text on message boxes (for example on the Save changes to…? prompt) is unreadable.
  • Text on the FILE-NEW dialog is unreadable.

Cause

This problem is caused by the presence of the language localisation library MFC42LOC.DLL on the system. Some installation programs will install this library by mistake on systems where the system runs in an English environment.

This DLL is located in the windows system directory which typically will be in one of these locations:
C:\WINDOWS\System32      most 32 bit Windows installations
C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64  most 64 bit Windows installations
C:\WINNT\System32            some older 32 bit Windows installations (Windows NT4 or Windows 2000).

Resolution

For all versions and operating systems update Pronto for Windows to release 5.04 or later.

References

None.