Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Anonymous

Apparently there is a huge problem with **** font rendering in Windows 8. Text appears very blurry. Programs affected by the new rendering are: Internet Explorer 10, the modern interface (start screen), Office 2013 and other 3rd party applications that rely on this rendering technology. There is no way to fix this problem, unless Microsoft recognizes it.

I 've gathered links bellow that refer to the same problem to highlight its importance and display the number of users that are affected:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-blurryfuzzy-text-and-icons-on-menu-not/ef8945ff-9920-47b2-b4ec-db1c5fbab7de

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-fonts-in-metro-ui-and-ie-10-blurry/3c29c415-54fd-44c8-b290-1c01dd05beaf

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/font-are-blurry-in-internet-explorer-10-windows-8/95fba606-5f45-43fa-bd96-413f6d9d9ad6

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/after-upgrading-to-windows-8-pro-my-fonts-in/210e46c9-4d16-4de7-8b59-2a1b0a7c738a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/internet-explorer-10-windows-8-font-rendering-blur/f3b33400-bb95-450c-9587-68adbf298a2f

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_cp-winapps/blurry-text-windows-8/576183c0-e5e2-4916-8283-0a193d633018

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-hardware/blurry-text-problem/d07ac513-de07-49d9-8718-7fbb6d07b634

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-browsers-font-rendering-issue-blocky/86139808-9c3f-48d9-bfa8-61afebd5761c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/windows-8-preview-release-blurry-font-rendering/668f454e-012f-498f-a086-b550a96d47e1

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/horrible-windows-8-font-rendering/cc263629-f4c8-4653-af36-435f4e6b7d38

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-desktop/will-windows-8-have-better-fonts-or-at-least/ad35ce7b-45a9-44b4-83d9-aae34df8dd97

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/fonts-are-suddenly-ugly-why/ba024dcc-c143-4ede-8f04-27930527c5be

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/installation-of-windows-8-cp-causes-blurred-fonts/75352b20-cb08-4312-b7f3-6c38bb5f5f0a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-desktop/monitor-fonts-windows-8-fuzzy-and-no-longer-crisp/052e7a57-79a7-49c5-93dc-bffb01969cbd

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie9-windows_vista/some-fonts-are-fuzzy-and-thicker-in-ie9-in/47f1846f-7817-464b-8121-d1ca02dbb71d

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/blurry-text-in-windows-8/ed053d17-b525-4e09-bdbc-de91114d975c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-has-made-my-text-blurry/7e9977e0-335f-4e8b-b321-eb2d156f36c1

Microsoft MSDN/TECHNET

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winappsuidesign/thread/4ddc57e1-de74-4044-940e-76e35a3e76b9

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/w8itprogeneral/thread/034ef255-40d5-41d5-9c58-841868326832

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/br/w8itprogeneral/thread/831ee84b-95a1-437a-b051-b7d51e13ba0f

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/d9c1ce96-58aa-401f-a5f4-1c62660077ca

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/W8ITProPreRel/thread/409d4e85-1124-4e1c-9cc0-3b2acfd519dd

External forums:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1120890-internet-explorer-10-fonts-fuzzy-in-windows-8/

http://www.eightforums.com/browsers-mail/5432-blurry-text-ie10-desktop.html

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f56/blurry-website-fonts-in-ie10-675564.html

http://www.techplex.net/postst78315_Text-in-Internet-Explorer-10-and-Metro-UI-is-blurry.aspx

http://superuser.com/questions/506192/disable-cleartype-blurry-fonts-in-internet-explorer-10-on-windows-7

http://bugsort.com/computer-users/computer-unclear-type-in-internet-explorer-on-windows-8/?PHPSESSID=10368ff87086c902a678043f63e39762

and there are lots of more...

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518 answers

Anonymous

2013-09-29T03:19:31+00:00

Office 2013 has its own font rendering which ignores the operating system settings just like IE10, IE11 and the Win 8 Modern interface.

Text is horribly blurry and makes Office 2013 unusable for me.

I even tried Office 2013 on Windows 7 to see if I could use it on that. Same appalling blurry text.

I had to revert to Office 2010.

Seems to me Microsoft are determined to self-destruct.

I am also of the belief that some Microsoft shills are occasionally posting on this thread to try and pretend the issue is solved and deflect attention from this spectacular failure.
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Anonymous

2013-09-29T02:41:32+00:00

Well this appears to have solved my problem with Fuzzy text.. So far anyway !!
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Anonymous

2013-09-28T13:58:58+00:00

I have Windows 8 64 bits and the issue is present with the new user interface and Internet Explorer 10, at least. The desktop is fine and my desktop applications are fine too, except Internet Explorer, of course! But I haven't tested Office 2013. I'm testing an open source office suite instead.

If Microsoft changed the font rendering for the desktop and the desktop applications too with a forced anti-aliasing feature in the next versions of Windows, I would stop using Windows as soon as I can provided I can find any decent replacement (I haven't been using Mac OS and Linux for a very long time so I don't know where they are at).
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Anonymous

2013-09-28T10:50:53+00:00

Note the 2nd last paragraph of the following article:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010820/how-long-will-microsoft-support-windows-7.html

"you probably won't have much to worry about with Windows 7 for another seven years."

A lot of users and corporates stuck with XP for so long because Vista was bad and many organisations seem to limit their desktop upgrades to 7 year cycles due to budget constraints. They upgraded from XP to Windows 7.

Windows 8 is so bad I can see a lot of organisations skipping it and upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 9 (if Win 9 is any good).
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Anonymous

2013-09-27T15:14:55+00:00

I have Windows 8 64bit retail version. I dont see this issue in my system. I think windows 8 might not be compatible with some graphics card or requires latest graphics card drivers. Let hope Microsoft resolves this issue in windows 8.1 . Ded9

It's not that you are not having this issue, it's just you don't care of notice it (or you really have a shitty monitor). Just use the same monitor with default settings/drivers with windows 7 and windows 8 and you'll definitly see the differences when you are browsing with IE10 (at least with the desktopversion, I don't use the RT ****).

I too hope they resolve the issue with windows 8.1, but I doubt it will, as mentioned above by someone from MS, the windows 7 rendering is still available (but not used by default, and I can't get it the same through using the crappy cleartype adjustment wizard). So if it's still available then it should be a simple registry setting, so why don't they just tell us which setting(s) we have to change to get the same (font) rendering as in windows 7... For me Windows 8 is nothing but a lot of discomfort in comparison to Windows 7, haven't seen ONE advantage of windows 8 compared to windows 7 (but since I had a new computer and Windows 7 won't be supported that long anymore (directX for instance doesn't get upgraded) I had to buy Windows 8, and I'm regretting it more and more..
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