Anyways, you've unlocked an old memory of mine, where Windows would crap itself due to low RAM and the fonts and interface elements would render in a "compatible" way, like using "fixedsys" font everywhere.
It happens sometimes, even in the present day: almost certainly it means something leaked and hit 9999 GDI objects (or user objects?) -- you can add those columns in task manager. Killing the offending process should fix it
Maybe not in the same way then.
Anyways, you've unlocked an old memory of mine, where Windows would crap itself due to low RAM and the fonts and interface elements would render in a "compatible" way, like using "fixedsys" font everywhere.