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Disable ClearType everywhere, Windows 7, Office 2007, Windows Live etc

I hate these ClearType fonts, drives me nuts. I like fonts that are clear cut and sharp. Anyway, the steps below turns off all the Windows 7 cleartype fonts, everywhere:

1. Disable ClearType by opening “Control Panel->Fonts->Adjust ClearType text” and unchecking “Turn on ClearType”.

Alternatively you can change the value of the following registry key from 2 to 1:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“FontSmoothingType”=dword:00000001

2. Disable font smoothing by unchecking “Smooth edges of screen fonts” in “Control Panel->System->Advanced system settings -> Performance Settings->Visual Effects.

Alternatively you can change the value of the following registry key from 2 to 1:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“FontSmoothing”=”1”

3. Change window elements fonts. To do this, open “Control Panel->Personalize->Window Color->Advanced appearance settings” and change all fonts from Segoe UI 9 to any other font (Windows XP uses Tahoma 8 for all elements by default).

These settings are stored in the following registry path:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]

4. Now you need to make the system believe that it has no Segoe UI fonts and that it must replace it with for example Таhoma. Please note that there is no need to delete any fonts!!!
Run regedit.exe and make the following changes in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
“Segoe UI (TrueType)”=””
“Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)”=””
“Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)”=””
“Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)”=””

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
“Segoe UI”=”Tahoma”

If you would like to revert it back here are the defaults:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
“Segoe UI (TrueType)”=”segoeui.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)”=”segoeuib.ttf”
“Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)”=”segoeuii.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)”=”segoeuiz.ttf”
“Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)”=”seguisb.ttf”
“Segoe UI Light (TrueType)”=”segoeuil.ttf”
“Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)”=”seguisym.ttf”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
“Segoe UI”=-

5. Restart the computer.

Thanks to the post here: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7desktop/thread/f180e803-3317-4433-8fd2-63aadaecc2d2

Posted in Technology. Tagged with , , .

By James
August 1, 2010

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