font conflict issue...

Microsoft revised Arial a while back and this might be related to your trouble. The revised versions shipped with Office 2007 and Vista.

T

It could be as simple as a corrupted or duplicate activated font. A good font manager that can organize, test your fonts, and check your font activations would give you a quick answer.

But since IT appears to be responsible for the problem, toss that ball back in their court.

Neil

This would appear to be a problem related to your IT staff's actions,
Microsoft Windows, and a font or fonts (Arial) supplied with Microsoft
products. It would seem to have nothing to do with Adobe, typography
or otherwise.

Even if the problem is appearing in Adobe applications such as Adobe
Photoshop or InDesign, or PDF's produced by Adobe Acrobat, the
difficulty is in the changed environment. If the problem is limited to
Adobe applications, and the font is otherwise available for use, then
you might try in the appropriate Adobe application forum for one of
those products.

Presuming that you've already discussed this unsuccessfully with your
IT support group, I'd suggest posing your question in a more general
Microsoft Windows forum. When you do, try to be more specific
regarding the files you're talking about (what type, what file
extension, etc.), what operating system you're using, what programs
you mean, and a concrete example of what you mean by "displays
erratically all over the place".

The solution may be as simple as deleting the windows fontcache or
running the font repair Microsoft's TWEAKUI utility, or it could
require more extensive measures.

- Herb