Windows Fonts, How to Disable, Install, Remove

Do you use a word-processor? Are you a Windows user? Do you have hundreds of fonts on your system? Do you have hundreds of fonts you don’t use on your system?

I certainly did and as a writer it was becoming more tedious every day to keep scrolling up and down the drop-down list for the few fonts I use. Have you ever noticed how there is always a font you use near the top and bottom of the list?

Well I decided to clean up the number of fonts installed on my Windows XP system and the following is the methods I used.

 

• Prevent a Font Loading
• Add a New Font
• Remove an Installed Font
• Fonts that should not be Deleted
• Oops – is it too late?
• Conclusion

 

These instructions should work with any of the following Windows systems: 95, 98, 98Se, NT4, 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003. You must have administrator rights, which if it’s your personal computer you should have, to add or remove system software.

To complete this task you should be reasonably computer literate and preferably backup your system first, just in case (you do backups of your system – Yes?).

There are a number of Windows fonts you should not delete, these are required by the system and a list can be found at the end of this article.

Prevent a Font Loading

You can prevent a font from loading when Windows starts without removing it from your hard disk. This will have the same effect as deleting the font but has the advantage that the font can be re-installed easily if required.

This process does not completely remove all traces of the font from the Windows operating system because the registry information is not deleted. However, it does prevent the selected fonts from loading.

• Create a new folder on your had drive for storing the fonts, i.e. C:\My Documents\My fonts.
• Using the Windows Explorer application cut the fonts not required from the, C:\Windows\Fonts folder and paste them into your new folder.
• Restart Windows.

When Windows restarts you should find the moved fonts have not have been installed. If you want to re-install them just copy the fonts back to the, C:\Windows\Fonts folder and restart Windows. As the registry information is still intact Windows should automatically recognise the fonts.

Add a New Font

Before you begin, make sure you have the fonts you are going to install in a convenient location on your hard drive.

• Click Start.
• Click Run.
• In the dialog box type, %windir%\fonts.
• Click OK.

You will be presented with the, Fonts window.

• Click on the File menu.
• Click Install New Font.

You will be presented with the, Add Fonts window.

• Select the drive where the fonts are located from the, Drives drop-down menu.
• Select the folder where the fonts are located from the, Folders box and click OK or double-click the selected folder.
• Select the font you want to add in the, List of fonts box. To select more than one font, press and hold the CTRL key while selecting each font.
• Select the, Copy fonts to Fonts folder, check box.
• Click OK.
• Restart Windows.

The new font(s) should be installed.

Remove an Installed Font

This procedure will remove a font from your system and prevent it from loading in future. If you just want to stop a font from loading on your system, see the, To Prevent a Font Loading, instructions.

• Click Start.
• Click Run.
• In the dialog box type, %windir%\fonts.
• Click OK.

You will be presented with the, Fonts window.

• Click on the File menu.
• Click Install New Font tab.

You will be presented with the, Add Fonts window.

• Click on the font that you want to remove. To select more than one font, press and hold the CTRL key while selecting each font.
• Click on the File menu.
• Click Delete.
• To the "Are you sure you want to delete these fonts?" prompt, click Yes.
• Restart Windows.

Fonts that should not be Deleted

Don’t be tempted to just start deleting fonts, there are lots of fonts that are essential to your operating system and specific software programs.

Do not delete the following fonts (this includes their derivatives, i.e. Bold, Italic, etc.:

• Any font with a red A for its icon.
• Any font that begins with the letters MS.

• Arial (TrueType)
• Comic Sans (TrueType)
• Comic BD (TrueType)
• Courier 10,12,15 (VGA res)
• Courier New (TrueType)
• Marlett (Windows 95/98) *
• Modern (Plotter)
• MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
• MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
• Roman (Plotter)
• Script (Plotter)
• Small fonts (VGA res)
• Symbol (TrueType)
• Symbol 8,10,12,14,18,24 (VGA res)
• Tahoma (TrueType)
• Times New Roman (TrueType)
• Wingdings (TrueType)

Additionally, some programs may have fonts that are required for that program to display properly, you will have to check those applications for specifics.

Oops – is it too late?

What can you do if you accidentally delete some of the required fonts? Don’t panic. You can easily restore essential fonts by reinstalling Windows. Running Windows Setup over your current installation will not harm your computer or installed software and it will restore any missing files, including fonts.

Conclusion

Not only is my word-processor easier to use but the operating system itself seems faster as well, but maybe that’s just me.