my friends IE is different than normal it has a plain white background and the font is really big. im going to attach a screen shot of it.Have your friend load up IE and choose one of the following:

1. Hold down Crtl key and roll the mouse wheel from top to bottom until happy with the size

2. View==>Text Size and choose a SMALLER size

Hope this helps.  8-)

And if that is not enough try this in IE:
 
1. Start          
2. Settings          
3. Control Panel          
4. Internet Options          
5. Security tab          
6. Reset all 4 security ZONES to Default          
      
1. Start          
2. Settings          
3. Control Panel          
4. Internet Options          
5. Privacy          
6. Restore 1 Default button          
      
1. Start          
2. Settings          
3. Control Panel          
4. Internet Options          
5. Advanced          
6. Restore 1 Default button          
      
You may need to do the following as well          
      
1. Start          
2. Settings          
3. Control Panel          
4. Internet Options          
5. General tab          
6. Remove cookies, temporary files and history          
      
Kudos to Raptor and Fedthat was the first thing i did
If anyone figures this out, I would appreciate it too. I got the same thing and XP Help and support looks like this, so does any web link accessed from a CHM file. This is a new XP setup. Computer, sys and OS is only two weeks old.Got it! Somehow Accessability options got CHANGED. I have never used them, but under Control Panel, Accessability options, display -- There was a tick MARK in "Use high contrast COLORS". I unchecked this and IE, Help and support, etc. were back to normal. Totally screwed up my desktop colors though. Went from Windows Green background to Navy blue. Almost black. With black icon lettering, this required some tinkering. Icons were larger also. The text under some overlapped it's neighbor. Makes me think Active Desktop and accesssability options got their reciepes mixed up.