Strange characters appearing

Dear kirbster,
Greetings from Microsoft Support!

This response is regarding your quarry where on your system some number in a different language.

The issue of numbers appearing in a different language on your Windows device is often caused by mismatched language or regional settings. This can happen if multiple language packs are installed, or if the system locale and regional format conflict with the display language. Additionally, certain applications or updates might override default settings, leading to inconsistencies. Adjusting language preferences and regional settings should resolve this problem effectively. Here are some methods which you can try to fix it: Check Region and Language Settings

• Go to Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region.
• Ensure your preferred language is set as the Windows display language.
• Under Region, make sure the Regional format matches your preferred language.

Adjust Administrative Language Settings

• Open Control Panel > Clock and Region > Region.
• Go to the Administrative tab and click Change system locale.
• Set it to your preferred language and restart your device.

Remove Unwanted Languages

• In Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region, remove any languages you don’t use.
• This ensures Windows doesn’t switch between languages unexpectedly.

Check Number Formatting

• In Control Panel > Clock and Region > Region, click Additional settings under the Formats tab.
• Verify that the number, currency, and date formats are set to your preferred language.

Reinstall Language Packs

• If the issue persists, reinstall the language pack:
  • Go to Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region.
  • Remove and re-add your preferred language, ensuring all optional features are installed.

Best regards,
Scott_LA,
Microsoft Community support.

Did all of your suggestions but nothing you mentioned solved the problem. There is only 1 language pack installed English US.

the last item you suggested :Reinstall Language Packs

• If the issue persists, reinstall the language pack:
  • Go to Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region.
  • Remove and re-add your preferred language, ensuring all optional features are installed.

there were no options to remove the default English US language pack.

Even using Windows 11 (Repair version) does not fix the problem.

I feel this is a bug within windows. Guess I'll have to live with Chinese characters in that area for now.

I just ran some updates and have the exact same problem. It's clearly a Windows bug. Not a big one, but clearly a bug.

Just a note, for other users - most of the Microsoft "experts" here are utterly useless and don't even read your question past a quick skim. Scott_LA, I suggest reading peoples questions and looking at their screenshots before pulling answers out of thin air. This clearly wasn't a language pack issue and anyone who has worked with Windows over the years would know that. All the other numbers are fine - but you think dropping into Kanji for one field means the user has the wrong language pack? Hokay. Then again, you un-ironically used the word "quarry" in an internet post response, so you're suspect from the get-go. (Surprised you didn't pull out the ol' DISM and sfc /scannow.) You're a moderator on here? Yikes.

Considering this is a mix of special characters, it seems to be an overflow issue, probably a bug where units weren't converted right, and something's landing randomly on the upper unicode characters for whatever current language you have selected.

Hands down a rather benign Windows bug, but a bug nonetheless.

(Am I little irked? Yes. This resource has become increasingly useless over the years. Get better.)

I noticed that the two people that showed screenshots of this issue have many TB of storage. I have a number of Windows 11 systems and only have this issue on one machine which has 18.19 TB of storage. My storage total consists of two 8 TB drives in a software RAID1 configuration and one 3 TB drive. I only have the strange characters on the right side ( xxx used) and I have only used 5.39 TB of the 18.19 TB. I suspect it may have something to do with the huge storage amount (over 10 TB)? Just another bug MS needs to fix, nothing new.

P.S. The Windows 11 machines with much less storage do not seem to have the issue, nor do two other machines that 3 TB (two 3 TB drives in software RAID1), so the software RAID1 can probably be ruled out as the cause.

I also have this problem - machine has 30+TB of storage similar to some of the other posters
Windows 11 24H2 Build 26100.4061