Thanks for the reply.
I looked in the registry for those keys but they seem to not exist, same for my netbook's registry (which my netbook also has Ultimate 32-bit, which the font applet does show on my netbook's control panel) and I'm installing Win7 as a guest in VirtualBox right now.
It's recent in that it's the first time this as happened...I can't honestly say how recent since doing a fresh install a week ago though, I only noticed it because I needed to install fonts for the first time. Could be right from install or anytime without my knowing.
I've been using Windows 7 since the Betas, RC and launch...never had this problem until now so I'm stumped.
At the moment I'm using FontFrenzy to manage/install fonts. It's doing an okay job but not too fond of doing that on a regular/permanent basis since I try to keep the amount of software to a minimum.
As for loading fonts through C:\Windows\Fonts...yeah, loadings fine....the fonts just don't seem to get registered/recognised if that makes any sense.