World of Goo uses images for fonts, so those images or the xml descriptions could be corrupt, or modified. Probably a bad source. If you pirated, your source was bad, but else let us know where you got it from and we'll try to help the best we can.

Yes I know, I found the description of the way the fonts are handled. I already checked that at least some of the .png files are correct by viewing their contents.
Moreover, multiple reinstallation did not solved the problem. Maybe there is a font cache somewhere that I did not erase between consecutive reinstallations. After uninstall I always deleted the remaining directory C:\Program Files\World of Goo as well as the application subdir in the user profile (in Local Steetings as far I remember.

No, it is a legal copy (original CD with its case). It is not my PC, I am trying to help someone since it is me that applied the windows updates 2 weeks ago on her PC. WOG was running fine before that and no longer after the updates. I will ask today where she bought the CD and give you the answer.

Thank you for your help.

No, it is a legal copy (original CD with its case). It is not my PC, I am trying to help someone since it is me that applied the windows updates 2 weeks ago on her PC. WOG was running fine before that and no longer after the updates. I will ask today where she bought the CD and give you the answer.
[/quote]

The CD has been bought from Amazon UK but we are living in France.
Editor is www.mastertronic.com
The EAN code printed on the case is 5 050740 023192
On the CD : World of Goo / Great Indie Games / RTL / 2D BOY
Copyright RTL Television 2009
I found this link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-of-Goo-PC-CD/dp/B002CVTKB0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U...

Hmm, should work. Have you tried installing the patch?

Yes. Moreover I just got the CD from my friend this morning and tryed it on one of my very old XP computers: WOG run perfectly, and I even find the way to make it display in french by modifying manually the configuration file. I am currently reinstalling Window XP on an older computer to try but I don't think that it will be different because WOG was running without problem on the PC of my friend before I did some system updates.

I will try to trace the startup to find which files are accessed but maybe I would save time if anybody know if there is a cache somewhere for the fonts or not ...

Reinstall Wog... May be the new update block a necesary process for World Of Goo... windows detect the action as potentialy unestable and block it.

My theory

G0o-gle, this guy at least sounds like he's remotely computer-savvy, unlike what you sound like. Leave this to the professionals.

Anyway, from what I've read it simply seems that the Windows update you mentioned is stuffing it up. I don't think there is a font cache or something, because if there was something of the sort (which I doubt either way) then it would retain the information from before the update, when WoG still worked. So even if such a cache existed, I don't think it'd be the culprit.

Most likely it's something along these lines: a Windows update changed the way in how WoG reads the fonts, and now can't do it properly. Because, from what I've been able to deduce, the only difference between your friend's PC and yours is that your friend's has the update. What's more, it worked before the update.

I would suggest either rolling back the update, or waiting until an update comes along that fixes this, although I can't guarantee the latter is gonna happen any time soon.
Alternatively, you could install a Linux OS (something like Ubuntu or Kubuntu) alongside Windows and see how WoG works with Wine. But that's a whole different story

puggsoy wrote:

wog31 wrote:

I am currently reinstalling Window XP

>reinstalling Window XP
>Window XP
>XP
Sorry, I just couldn't help noticing that

It will probably end this way, but debugging is one of my prefered games and this solution is like cheating

WOG is running without problem on the 3 other PC on which I tested despite there are also up to date. I will compare the trace on all the PC to find a difference but I am rather pessimistic and, as often under Windows, your first suggestion may be the unique solution ...

puggsoy wrote:

Alternatively, you could install a Linux OS (something like Ubuntu or Kubuntu) alongside Windows and see how WoG works with Wine. But that's a whole different story

I am working on linux computers and even using linux at home, but I am not enough proselyth to replace Windows by Linux on the computers of my friends

You could dualboot.

wog31 wrote:

I am working on linux computers and even using linux at home, but I am not enough proselyth to replace Windows by Linux on the computers of my friends

As Red said, you could do a dualboot. Actually, that's what I was proposing, I probably should have been more specific.
But if you prefer to do a rollback that's cool. Maybe installing Linux is a bit of a stretch just to get WoG to work