Well can anyone tell me why some symbols are boxes?

The pics above the nicks are what they symbol is supposed to be.

This is because the font used by WLM9 does not have these characters, so they will show up as boxes. The font used by 8.5 (Tahoma if you're on XP, not sure about Vista though) also does not have these characters, so whatever your version and OS, they should always be boxes.

When choosing characters to use in your nick, always remember to use the Character Map set to Tahoma.

EDIT: if you're using WLM9, set it to Segoe UI.

I don't think that's the problem.
I can view all those symbols perfect on my laptop. (Which is same OS, wlm version.)

I might have something to do with something I did a month or two ago.

I went regional and language options then advanced, then ticked all the boxes.
Anything related?
I've gone back there and unticked all the boxes I ticked so it's the same as my laptop but that didn't change anything.

any ideas?

Ok, i think the poster above me is correct.
I installed the wlm 2009 beta on my laptop and i have boxes now 

so there's no way at all to fix this problem?
albeit telling all my contacts to change their nicknames lol