[bazza]

For some reason my text colour has changed to blue from black. I have tried Options/contents/colors then clicked on text box, chosen black on colour chart then OK but it still stays on blue text. Help please.

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Is this true for everything or just one application? Is one, which one?

[Ztruker]

Is this true for everything or just one application? Is one, which one?

[bazza]

All the pages I browse have black text but details are blue.
The text in My Documents, my Downloads etc is also blue.

[Ztruker]

Did you recently do a Disk Cleanup and left the option to Compress files checked perhaps? Compressed files are always shown in blue.

What browser do you use, IE? If so, try one of the others to see if the same problem occurs.

FireFox, Opera or Google Chrome,

[bazza]

I use Firefox 5. I haven't done a Disc Cleanup.

[Ztruker]

The first thing I would do is check for some kind of malware. Go to the Virus, Spyware, Malware Removal forum, read the first post and follow instructions.

Come back here once you get a clean bill of health if you still have problems.

[bazza]

I have Avira, Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials. I reinstalled Windows XP two weeks ago and the problem has been here ever since. In the meantime I have performed several complete scans and no viruse or trojans have been found. Your call.

[Ztruker]

Not malware then. Do you see the same color with IE as you do with FireFox.

What do you see if you start Firefox without Add-ons? To do this, click on the Firefox button at top left, then point to the arrow next to Help and select Restart with Add-ons disabled.

[bazza]

After a lot of searching I have solved the problem..I went into Control Panel, Classic view and then Folder Options/View/Hidden files and folders/Show hidden files and folders/. Second from bottom on list is Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color. I un-checked this. Blue text black again. Thanks for your input.

[Ztruker]

I sort of suggested that in my 2nd post when I asked about compressed files. I was close!

How does that affect the color of text in your browser though?

[Ztruker]

You said I have Avira, Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials.

Are you running Avira and Microsoft Security Essentials at the same time? If so I would recommend picking one and uninstalling the other. Not a good idea to have to AV programs running at the same time.

[bazza]

That is an interesting suggestion. My IT guy says the same thing, but has not explained why. Interestingly whenever I do a scan on Avira and Malawarebytes on the odd occasion a virus is discovered, it is Microsoft Security that comes up and announces it is cleaning the computer. My IT guy also advices against running Zonealarm but I have found that very useful. I fixed the browser text colour problem by going to Tools/options/content/fonts and colors/advanced/checked Allow pages to select their own fonts.

[Ztruker]

I have not used a software firewall other than what comes with Windows for 3-4 years now. I'm behind a router which gives me a hardware firewall then the Windows firewall so have not had any problem.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials for AV and Malware Bytes Pro for Spyware and web blocking and have not had any problems there in a long time either (knock knock knock - on wood )

As far as the color problem, you had to change to different places to fix it then? Very strange. I wonder how they got set incorrectly?

Oh well, glad it's fixed now.

Peace

[123Runner]

The 2 virus scanners will fight each other and you could have less security. While Avira is a good one (I also run it), Microsoft security essentials is quite good. It is Geeks to Go recommended scanner now.

[bazza]

I feel both have their uses. Microsoft seems to be the dominant one. I can do a Microsoft scan which shows no threats and then an Avira scan , and if it detects a problem it is Microsft Essentials that deals with it!Kind of symbiotic.