Ytdyklly

Short question:

How can I change the default windows 8.1 fonts to something else?! (see pic below for further details)

Long question:

I discovered that the default Windows 8 font is Segoe WP which I really don't like. I believe I was using Tahoma on my previous system - Windows 7, which on it's own was using Segoe UI which I disabled to mimic Windows XP. I have probably changed it via the (which I miss so very much)

or by changing the registries (shown below)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionFonts]



"Segoe UI (TrueType)"=""

"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"=""

"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"=""

"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"=""



[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionFontSubstitutes]



"Segoe UI"="Tahoma"

My issue is that I HATE ClearType. It looks horrible on my LCD screen.

As you can see, in any way it looks just either weird-ish 3D or just very pixelated. I like Font Smoothing and I do enjoy dropping shadows under desktop icons, but ClearType in combination with Segoe is just horrible.

Weirdly, right now on some sites which are using Helvetica Neue, like 9gag, no matter what I do, they look just.. broken (see pic above).

PS: I've calibrated the ClearType 500 time so far and I'm just not satisfied. I simply want Tahoma instead of Segoe Wp.

PPS: I did try to remove all SegoeUI and SegoeWP fonts from the registries and then made on my own two new string values to basically copy the same flow from the above script = small improvement, but not as good as I want.

1. Open Appearance from the Control Panel. Click “Window Colours” and then “Advanced Colours”.



2. 
   

   In the Item list, select the part of Windows for which you want to change the font. For example, if you want to change the menu font, click “Menu” in the list. Then, make any of the following changes:

   
   
   
   
   
   • In the Font list, click the font that you want to use.
   
   
   • In the Size list, click the font size that you want to use.
   
   
   • In the Color list, click the font color that you want to use.
   
   
   
   



3. Repeat these steps for each item that you want to make changes to, and then click “OK”.

In my case with Windows 8.1 the default font is Segoe UI, not WP, but it looks dirty anyway. FontSubstitutes trick doesn't really work, in the best case it results in Arial, not Tahoma as I want, and it doesn't let you change font size. To make it short, you should:

1. Use registry node HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktopWindowMetrics to set fonts for basic stuff like windows titles, menus and desktop icons. The easiest way to do it is to use another PC with the lost Appearance interface (Win7/XP) for importing registry values from it, or you can use helper software like Font Changer.


2. Install UxStyle and AeroByDesign themes.


3. Edit the string table in AeroByDesign.msstyles with ResHacker: replace all “Segoe UI” with the font you want, and you’ll probably want to decrease the font size. This affects taskbar, date/time area, control panel, task manager and some other stuff.


4. In order to change the font of other apps, you have to edit their resource (mui) files accordingly (use Process Explorer to find out what resources they use).


5. For some apps, even that is not enough, because they store their font beyond resources. Then their dlls can be edited in the binary mode (in that case you will need the registry node FontSubstitutes).

You can find more info, including which mui files should be changed for different applications / parts of Windows in my livejournal: https://ks74.livejournal.com/1692.html