I had a problem similar to this, but not in Windows 7. It was caused by a corrupted font. I don't remember now if it was one of the system fonts or a third-party one.
It would be time consuming, but have you tried uninstalling all the third party fonts and then installing them back one by one or perhaps in small batches to see if the problem is with a corrupt font?
Also, this may seem far fetched, but have you tried updating your video and print drivers? Way back in the days of early Windows I remember that there were some bizarre application problems that ended up being caused by a bad mix between fonts, print drivers and video drivers.
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