Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Anonymous
2013-02-24T00:17:00+00:00

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...

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-12T10:46:08+00:00

    Since IE10 I use a different browser because of the forced anti aliasing which looks blurry for me so that my eyes get tired more quickly because they try to focus for sharp text which will not happen because it is not sharp due to the anti aliasing.

    I really tried using IE10 for a while as I was always using IE but I just could not stand it.

    If none anti aliased text comes back I will switch back immediately.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-12T11:38:29+00:00

    FYI, I tried IE11 last week, and it's the same as IE10 - Horrible.  It took me an hour and two reboots to put my system back together again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-12T14:12:39+00:00

    FYI, I tried IE11 last week, and it's the same as IE10 - Horrible.  It took me an hour and two reboots to put my system back together again.

    Consider getting a good disk imaging/backup program. You could have put your disk or partiton back to pre IE11 condition in minutes insteads of hours.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-11-22T07:02:25+00:00

    I had the same issue and could fix it easily by simple windows settings:

    It was in the display settings to change the size of items to small.

    Its explained in detail here:

    http://codeskaters.blogspot.ae/2013/10/windows-81-blurry-text-fix.html

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-11-22T07:39:54+00:00

    I had the same issue and could fix it easily by simple windows settings:

    It was in the display settings to change the size of items to small.

    Its explained in detail here:

    http://codeskaters.blogspot.ae/2013/10/windows-81-blurry-text-fix.html

    Habeeb, that only applies to scaling up window contents from executables which are marked as not being dpi aware, which even system tools like mmc.exe for event viewer and service manager are  not.

    What you meant is fixed as soon as you disable per monitor scaling. You can leave the DPI for all monitors setting at higher values, to get clear and larger text in (almost) all applications *except* IE11.

    IE11 does  not use GDI like other (older) windows applications so it does not use the Windows setting to not smooth font edges. It displays text on its own with DirectWrite and always uses anti aliasing. Some people don't like the switch from ClearType with RGB sub pixel anti aliasing to grey scale anti aliasing, other's did as the problem of colored borders around letters went away.

    But some people, me too, do not like anti aliasing/font smoothing at all as it makes text blurry which hurts our eyes which are used to see sharp contrasts.

    So, in short, no, your solution does not solve the text smoothing problem in IE11.

    It seems there is no built in way to solve it, so we still hope for Microsoft to implement a fix.

    Until then I stick to Chrome, except for msdn subscriber downloads as Chrome cannot use the File Transfer Manager. But then again: IE 11 cannot use the File Transfer Manager if you do not change IE11 to IE8 mode from the dev tools - oh my, some more dog fooding might help, to keep the parts working together smoothly ;-)

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