see also gaim bugs
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1051904&group_id=235&atid=680472
and
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1051222&group_id=235&atid=680472

Please note that, as far as I know, nobody here knows what "Rev A" and "Rev B" 
means. If there is a difference between them, the packager who you got them 
from probably knows what it is. Ask him/her.

additional reports coming in indicate that this happens with romanian also. I'll
get back to you on the revision thing. 

right now, all I know, and all my users know is that its the versioning & file
info as downloaded from the gtk installers that herman creates. I've asked one
of our win32 guys to comment further on this bug with more info on that. they
added the following changelog entry that may help:
    * Updated GTK+ to 2.4.10 (rev b)
      This revision updates glib to 2.4.7 and pango to 1.6.0, fixing the
      dreaded 'UDP port pollution' and 'crash on symbol font' bugs
      respectively.

Paladin Liu (the other gaim translator for traditional Chinese)
found out that this problem is in pango and can be worked
around by modifying the pango.aliases file:

For traditional Chinese, you have to (if you don't downgrade
GTK) edit pango.aliases file (with an editor that
understands Unix-style line endings) and replace all the
list of font names with just "MingLiU". For example,
pango.aliases has

   sans = "Lucida Sans Unicode,Microsoft Sans Serif,..."

and this line must be replaced with

   sans = "MingLiU"

and the same change must be done also to the "serif" and
"courier" aliases.

The workaround is identical for simplified Chinese, but with
a different font (I am not sure what the system font for
simplified Chinese is).

Herman tells me that revsion A had pango version 1.4.1,  does that information
suffice (in conjunction with the above)? 

This must be a duplicate of bug #152997. The fix for that was applied to HEAD 
only, not to pango-1-6. I don't think I was even aware that there was a pango-1-
6 branch when I fixed that. (But Pango 1.6.0 had been released on Sep 13, and 
the bug was fixed on Sep 25, so it wouldn't have helped anyway.) Will have to 
apply the fix to the pango-1-6 branch, too, and it will then be in Pango 1.6.1.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 152997 ***

I am getting reports that this fixed winXP but that the problem persists on win2k

that *what* fixed winXP? Are you talking about the somewhat misleading hint to 
edit the pango.aliases file. That's just a workaround. The real fix has been 
applied to the Pango source code. It will be in Pango 1.6.1, whenver that is 
released. Bugzilla is about bugs in the source code, so no need to repoen this. 
The problem is that the GTK distribution you use includes the broken Pango 
1.6.0 instead of the working 1.4.1.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 152997 ***

i reopened it because we changed what pango we distribute, and the problem has
gone away for windows XP users, but not for windows 2000 users. I am working on
getting you the version of pango we are now shipping. 

and yes, I know that this bugzilla, like our own sf tracker, refers to source
code bugs. bug when I change pango versions and the problem only partly goes
away, I tend to think that just maybe your fix was not complete. 

Do the fonts listed in the pango.aliases file (especially the Chinese ones in 
this case) exist on the end-user's Win2k box? I think you had to install some 
extra package from Windows Update ("Chinese support for Internet Explorer or 
something like that) at least on my English Win2k to get them.

Created attachment 33767 [details]
pango.alias file from affected user

from the user:
"The file 'pango.alias' is attached. I am not sure what exactly 	       
 
they are looking for. I see no section named 'Chinese', but I		       

do see Chinese fonts like 'simhei', 'simsun' are listed.		       

BTW, I have no issue browsing Chinese web sites with IE." --rodger_wang at
users dot sf