Check to make sure that there is not a floppy in the floppy drive. I am not joking.
It's serial. When someone leaves in their camera, USB card reader or other doodad, it messes up the boot order. I'm thinking this isn't the case here, but it's always good to check
If the machine made it past POST, boot sector, and startup, it has mostly loaded the OS by the time it gets to the fonts. The system has been thoroughly exercised at this point.
He says this is the third time this year: spyware picked up in admin mode.