MBAM writes logfiles in unicode

[taponick]

Has anyone ever figured out why in rare instances MBAM writes its log files in Unicode character mapping??  I saw a couple of old posts along these lines, but no resolution.  My log files are all in Unicode as is clearly shown in notepad (dots between every character), shown correctly in Word using Unicode mapping.

 

I think I have a very hard to find issue with my machine, and this may be one of the symptoms.  On the other hand, it might just be a wrong setting. (My region is US and language is English, nothing else outputs Unicode, just MBAM).

 

Running win 7 64 bit (SP-1), all standard stuff.  Did a full scan with MBAM, McAfee, Kaspersky TDSS killer, Rogue Killer and Hittman Pro, found nothing.  But I cannot update IE 11 or remove it - all other updates work fine.

 

And I have this Unicode log file quirk in MBAM.

 

Sooner or later I'm gonna pull the plug and restore in place.  But I'd really like to know what happened.

[AdvancedSetup]

Hello and

 

This is not normal behavior.

 

I would suggest following the advice from the topic here Available Assistance for Possibly Infected Computers and having one of the Experts assist you with looking into your issue.

Thanks