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

2013-11-27T14:42:04+00:00

I write about this problem in Microsoft Connect... and see what they replied to me:

"Thank you for your feedback.At this time we do not plan on making this change.In Windows 8 Internet Explorer switched to using greyscale anti-aliasing across the Windows Platform.Your feedback is helping us see the needs of our users so we can improve the quality of Internet Explorer. We continue to welcome more feedback and look forward to hearing from you again soon.Best regards,The Internet Explorer Team"

So, they really doesn't care about Internet Explorer... I will continue to use Chrome till this is fixed some time in the future...

You can see my post here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/803978/blurry-text
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Anonymous

2013-11-27T15:22:12+00:00

For those of us getting lost in the technical aspects here, this servers as a primer:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20120303/cleartype-takes-a-back-seat-for-windows-8-metro/
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Anonymous

2013-12-11T08:26:33+00:00

Big Changes Are Coming to Windows

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-81/microsoft-windows-big-changes-coming

We can hope...
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Anonymous

2013-12-12T03:01:51+00:00

I am also having the same issue, but it didn't show up until I installed 8.1. I am having the problem on my new Asus laptop and things were great until I upgraded. I have gone through forum after forum to try to correct the problem and nothing seems to work. Most programs that use their own fonts don't seem to have the problem, it's only the programs that use the Windows 8 font to render.

Please Microsoft, fix this problem because it drives me nuts!!!

Asus G75 laptop

Nvidia Geforce GTX 660M

1920x1080 Res

Win 8.1 fully updted
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Anonymous

2013-12-12T07:29:25+00:00

I am also having the same issue, but it didn't show up until I installed 8.1. I am having the problem on my new Asus laptop and things were great until I upgraded. I have gone through forum after forum to try to correct the problem and nothing seems to work. Most programs that use their own fonts don't seem to have the problem, it's only the programs that use the Windows 8 font to render.

Please Microsoft, fix this problem because it drives me nuts!!!

Asus G75 laptop

Nvidia Geforce GTX 660M

1920x1080 Res

Win 8.1 fully updted

If it is new to you for 8.1 and not in IE but in several other programs, than I guess it is the new feature to use different DPI scalings per displays to support connecting different displays with different DPIs.

All application which say that they are not dpiAware (in a manifest resource in their exe-file) get blurry when not shown at 100% scaling which is 96dpi IIRC.

For non-Windows apps you can open the properties dialog of the exe in on the compatibility tab you can check "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings".

For built in apps like Event Viewer (MMC) you can try to patch the manifest resource to set dpiAware to true, but that will break the signature of signed exe files, so running microsoft tools like event viewer (MMC) will come up with UAC prompts for unsigned apps which otherwise would not happen for correctly signed exe files.

An easier "global" way is to open the display settings (desktop > right click > Screen resolution : Click on "Make text and other items larger or smaller". Check "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays". That seems to trigger a different behaviour that programs (at the least the programs that I use) are not scaled up automatically.

HTH

SvenC
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