You said you deleted only MS fonts at first. Since you now only left System fonts, run Font Finagler, it could still be a font in the font caches somewhere. How many fonts are listed in System/Library/Fonts?
Can you launch anything MS in Safe Boot mode to see if it is a third party item or font.
Open the Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities) Type: sudo update_prebinding -root / -force and press Return. When prompted for a password, enter your admin password, you won't be able to see characters being typed, and press Return again. The process is complete when the Terminal returns to a normal prompt. Type exit and press Return.
so I'm stuck until I can reformat the whole disk - crappy solution the Microsoft way...
Not really. Not sure what version of the OS you are running but you can reinstall the system over the one you have. 10.5 and earlier calls it Archive and install, 10.6 does an A&I by default.
No security updates or Safari install were made in the last 20 days, so I don't think that was the issue. Only thing it could be - because it's browser-related - is that I was trying some browsers to see which one is best for my PPC. Maybe some of them made that, I don't know...
Anyway, already archived/installed and everything works just fine now. It was easier and faster than I thought, only thing is that I have to re-do some configs but that's minor. Thanks for the help.
It is the same video but he changed the download link version in his 'About" section. Make sure you hang on to the older plug-in case the new one doesn't work right.