Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Not again!

Main issue: IE & Friends disrespect the rendering settings of Windows.

ClearType tuner results in a myadrid of possible settings. IE ignores them all. Popup balloons do as well (in a different way).

Whatever the cleartype settings are set to, whatever the global anti-aliasing flag is set to, should be what everything uses. Any failure to do this should be regarded as a critical accessibility bug.

Due to non-resolution, I am stuck on the following components:

Windows 7 (and only because someone made a no segoe patch)

SQL Query Analyzer 2000 (connecting to much higher versions of database servers).

[I could use SQL Management Studio 2005 if someone would be so kind as to knock the database server version check out of it -- but no higher version]

Office 2003

Internet Explorer 8

Visual Studio 2010

All of these relate to the same root accessibility problem.

For me, system colors must be inverted (black backgrounds) and all fonts must be bi-level rendered. A font that requires ClearType (such as Consolas or Segoe) must be banished from the system.

I found the solution to this issue.  Within the properties of every program (right click on the program and select properties), under the "Compatibility" tab there is a checkbox under Settings called "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings".  If you check this box on the app and restart the app (if it's already open) the fonts and graphics are crystal clear. 

Here's a link to a complete description of the solution:

http://superuser.com/questions/661655/applications-like-chrome-look-blurry-in-windows-8-1

That's not a solution but a tedious workaround to a problem that exists solely because MS switched Windows to grey-scale anti-aliasing. Much easier to just use nonwindows progs.

The solution is to stop using the current rendering method. Since many of those that were at the top of the Windows 8/8.1 team are gone, exiled, or promoted to oblivion, there's a good chance a correction will be made in the the next version, 8.2 or whatever they call it.

What you are talking about is a different issue. The main issue described here remains unsolved (probably only MS can resolve it).

I found the solution to this issue.  Within the properties of every program (right click on the program and select properties), under the "Compatibility" tab there is a checkbox under Settings called "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings".  If you check this box on the app and restart the app (if it's already open) the fonts and graphics are crystal clear. 

Here's a link to a complete description of the solution:

http://superuser.com/questions/661655/applications-like-chrome-look-blurry-in-windows-8-1

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