I had spyware that was not detected. I ran system mechanic 4.0 and now my laptop boots to the desktop, I see all of the icons, but all of the titles for the icons is in symbols.
Whenever I go to any folders, they too are in symbols...not readable. If I click startup, the standard buttons are there and have lettered titles but my programs on the left side are all listed with symbols so I can't read them at all.

Try restoring to a date before you ran System Mechanic

Using XP System Restore