Old characters wont load

[JazzyJoe]

Recently started playing after taking a year or so off and none of my old characters are showing up on the character menu. I was able to make a new character to test if the game was working and the movement, frame rate, spell casting and attacking seemed to be working fine. Running it on Windows 7 64 bit.
I've done all the basic file installation/deletion:
Running in a fresh directory,
arena.eqg
arena_EnvironmentEmitters.txt
lavastorm.eqg
nektulos.eqg
Nektulos_EnvironmentEmitters.txt all taken out,
Updated drivers,
Tried running with "Launch Titanium" and "eqgame.exe" both with/without various compatibility modes and "C:\your eq folder extension\eqgame.exe" patchme,
eqhost.txt is normal.

The game works fine when running it through "eqgame.exe" in Windows XP SP 2 Compatibility mode.

Have not tried WinEQ2 yet since the game is running fine and doesn't seem to be a multicore cpu issue, plus it seems to bring problems of its own from the posts i've read.

Not really sure how to proceed from here and any help would be appreciated.