I would like to completely disable all font smoothing, anti-aliasing, etc... on Windows 7. I find it difficult to read and it gives me a headache. Here's what I've tried so far: Switched to Windows 7 Basic theme. (No Aero.) Run the ClearType tuner. (It didn't help. I want to remove font smoothing, not tweak it.) Disabled ClearType altogether. (Taskbar, menus, etc... remain smoothed/anti-aliased). Unchecked "Smooth edges of screens fonts" from Performance -> Visual Effects. (Taskbar fonts, help, control panel, etc... remain smoothed). Changed all my fonts to Tahoma under Personalize -> Windows Color Using regedit, added "Tahoma" as the first option under HKLM->Software->Microsoft->Windows NT->Current Version->FontSubstitutes Deleted all Segoe fonts from /Windows/Fonts (Had to take ownership to do so) Deleted nearly all extraneous fonts from /Windows/Fonts (I was getting frustrated...) Tried playing with HKCU->Control Panel->Desktop-> FontSmoothingType (both 1 and 0) and FontSmoothing (both 1 and 0). Tried running my laptop at a non-native resolution (Makes it even worse) The above steps removed most font smoothing, though the taskbar, dialogue boxes, control panel, etc... remain smoothed/anti-aliased. So far, the only way I've found to completely disable any smoothing is to switch to Classic mode, which has the unfortunate effect of removing any visual styles whatsoever. In short, I want Win7 fonts to render in a binary/completely pixelated fashion, with no gray fuzziness or subpixel rendering. Please help!

**** the way i found these you take it off is by typing in windows performance, searches; comes up with adjust apearence and perfomance of windows take off smooth blah blah blah and your good. So far it seem to be working on my attempted fix for d2s colors not being screwed up. :) yet i just dont know.. games screwy. ive done like 12 other things and under compatibility mode it doesnt let you select another color bit mode and i dont quite want to select 16 bit color each time either... Takes off the smoothing of all my fonts; a very noticeable diffrence.

I just wanted to add myself as another person who is disappointed with the way that Windows 7 has done its font smoothing. I have recently upgraded to Windows 7, from Windows XP, and in my personal opinion Windows XP had fonts pretty much perfect. The taskbar in Windows 7 is just painful to look at. I feel like I need glasses to view it, and I have 20/20 vision. Text (e.g. in IE or Firefox) in Windows 7 is also smoothed to within an inch of its life. I feel a total craving for crisp text after spending an hour using Windows 7. Please - Microsoft developers - give us the option of getting fonts/text back the way it was in Windows XP!

Thanks to all that have Posted solutions here as they defintiely work in Win7 Another issue I have found is at work we are deploying windows 2008 as a terminal server. It also employes Font Smoothing, but when yo ts to a machineyou can turn it off from Control Panel and this will get saved to your user profile. What does not happen is if you use Publish a single application from TS as a "remote app" it ignore the Font Smooting settings on the application Does any have any idea on how to disable this? Ken

microsoft fixed font smoothing problem in wpf in version 4.0.. I've updated to .net framework 4.0 rc, but it did not changed superbar fonts. Maybe win7 has another builtin wpf dll's etc. I think that maybe the changes would need to be ported across from WPF to directX; which hopefully would fix fonts accross the OS and non WPF apps that use Direct2d/Directwrite. I can't find any confirmation that this is the case though.

Disable all font smoothing in Windows 7 (ie: including taskbar, menus, control panel, etc...)

Anonymous

I would like to completely disable all font smoothing, anti-aliasing, etc... on Windows 7. I find it difficult to read and it gives me a headache.

Here's what I've tried so far:

Switched to Windows 7 Basic theme. (No Aero.)
Run the ClearType tuner. (It didn't help. I want to remove font smoothing, not tweak it.)
Disabled ClearType altogether. (Taskbar, menus, etc... remain smoothed/anti-aliased).
Unchecked "Smooth edges of screens fonts" from Performance -> Visual Effects. (Taskbar fonts, help, control panel, etc... remain smoothed).
Changed all my fonts to Tahoma under Personalize -> Windows Color
Using regedit, added "Tahoma" as the first option under HKLM->Software->Microsoft->Windows NT->Current Version->FontSubstitutes
Deleted all Segoe fonts from /Windows/Fonts (Had to take ownership to do so)
Deleted nearly all extraneous fonts from /Windows/Fonts (I was getting frustrated...)
Tried playing with HKCU->Control Panel->Desktop-> FontSmoothingType (both 1 and 0) and FontSmoothing (both 1 and 0).
Tried running my laptop at a non-native resolution (Makes it even worse)

The above steps removed most font smoothing, though the taskbar, dialogue boxes, control panel, etc... remain smoothed/anti-aliased. So far, the only way I've found to completely disable any smoothing is to switch to Classic mode, which has the unfortunate effect of removing any visual styles whatsoever. In short, I want Win7 fonts to render in a binary/completely pixelated fashion, with no gray fuzziness or subpixel rendering.

Please help!

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi Ken,

Hopefully the Win 7 typography team will make this "feature" optional by SP1. I'm holding out until then. But if you insist on using 7 before the font smoothing is fixed, here's how to deal with registry font substitutes and UAC/system protection.

Edit the registry settings under FontSubstitutes so that "Tahoma" appears before Segoe in any FontSubstitute settings. Then, take ownership of the Windows directory (I took ownership of all subdirectories and files, which might be excessive, but made other tweaking easier to deal with) to delete Segoe. To take ownership, right click on the Windows system folder, select "Properties", click on Security, Advanced, then clik on Owner in Advanced security settings... Click on the edit button and change owner to your own account . Make certain "Replace owner on subcontainer..." is checked.

It's overkill, but will get it done.

R5N

P.S. If anyone does figure out how to remove font smoothing from the Win 7 taskbar, I will praise you for all of time.

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44 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-03-25T00:54:21+00:00

**** the way i found these you take it off is by typing in windows performance, searches; comes up with adjust apearence and perfomance of windows take off smooth blah blah blah and your good. So far it seem to be working on my attempted fix for d2s colors not being screwed up. :) yet i just dont know.. games screwy. ive done like 12 other things and under compatibility mode it doesnt let you select another color bit mode and i dont quite want to select 16 bit color each time either... Takes off the smoothing of all my fonts; a very noticeable diffrence.
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Anonymous

2010-09-21T12:32:31+00:00

I just wanted to add myself as another person who is disappointed with the way that Windows 7 has done its font smoothing.

I have recently upgraded to Windows 7, from Windows XP, and in my personal opinion Windows XP had fonts pretty much perfect.

The taskbar in Windows 7 is just painful to look at. I feel like I need glasses to view it, and I have 20/20 vision.

Text (e.g. in IE or Firefox) in Windows 7 is also smoothed to within an inch of its life. I feel a total craving for crisp text after spending an hour using Windows 7.

Please - Microsoft developers - give us the option of getting fonts/text back the way it was in Windows XP!
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2010-07-13T05:38:09+00:00

Thanks to all that have Posted solutions here as they defintiely work in Win7

Another issue I have found is at work we are deploying windows 2008 as a terminal server. It also employes Font Smoothing, but when yo ts to a machineyou can turn it off from Control Panel and this will get saved to your user profile.

What does not happen is if you use Publish a single application from TS as a "remote app" it ignore the Font Smooting settings on the application

Does any have any idea on how to disable this?

Ken
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Anonymous

2010-06-14T21:23:49+00:00

microsoft fixed font smoothing problem in wpf in version 4.0.. I've updated to .net framework 4.0 rc, but it did not changed superbar fonts. Maybe win7 has another builtin wpf dll's etc.

I think that maybe the changes would need to be ported across from WPF to directX; which hopefully would fix fonts accross the OS and non WPF apps that use Direct2d/Directwrite. I can't find any confirmation that this is the case though.
Was this answer helpful?

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