Ok, installed 2.48a and set up my default “new” scene. it is just a mesh cube with camera and light, no textures or any thing else that I know of. Fine, I click on new and get a cube in object mode, then when I tab into edit, I get this:
What, if anything does the weird looking face mean? If I delete the cube and add something else there is always a face that shows up like this. If I tab back to object mode and then tab back into edit mode and hit ctrl+z the face is drawn normally until I go back into object mode and back to edit. I am puzzled. It has to be something simple.