text/drop boxes messed up

Hello all, my first post here, so be gentle... I have had a problem on my computer for about 2 weeks now. I am using WinMe and Internet explorer. Now, my problem is that all my check boxes(when I need to verify something) online and offline are all messed up, no box and no check, just some crazy text character in it's place. Also, when I open up a new page, it won't accept any change in text/font changes(it won't save them after I reset explorer) and also, when I use a program that has, say a list of different languages, the drop box opens and instead of a list of text*(different languages) it is just a list of text and characters(for example, where it should say english, it has ?`,..*^&&^ <--something like that). And when I use any writing program, like Word, there is no list at all for different fonts, just a blank list with a couple choices. It is getting crazy, I can't read my internet sites, the text is so garbled, I change the fonts and text to say Unicode, and it makes it readable, but then the next site I visit, the text is all garbled again. Any help? I ran 3 different ad-aware programs and virus checked, but I don't know how to fix this problem at all.

 

oh, and maybe to explain my problem a little better, all of my icons seem to be messed up. For example, in my drop boxes, instead of having a down arrow, they all have the #6..in Explorer, where you click to minimize/maximize your window, there are a 0, 2, and a P instead of the box graphics. My back arrows are all number 6's as well.....ohhhh, I hope I don't need to wipe my computer~~~