Have you changed all your desktop, user interface, and dialog fonts to Tahoma or some other font only to find Segoe UI still appearing in places? Are you not happy with the way these many dialogs and screens still look in Windows Vista? Well, here is the problem… Microsoft installs Vista with a Shell Font that can’t easily be changed, and it is called Segoe UI. If you use an older CRT, you may find the setup of Segoe UI and ClearType especially bothersome. You may also get similar results on modern LCD monitors. Segoe UI looks best with ClearType (which is a font smoothing system built into Windows), so you then turn on ClearType, but then things do not look right, especially in fonts such as Arial and Tahoma which without ClearType can have very clear edges.
So you go into your Appearance/Advanced tab and change everything to Tahoma 8. You then think you have Segoe UI replaced. But many dialogs do not have it replaced and you still have Segoe UI appearing! Some of these areas include:
- Your Start Menu
- Windows Help
- File action dialogs such as the delete file dialog.
- 3rd party applictions that use Segoe UI for their menus.
- And more…
So, with a lot of trial and error, I was able to come up with a solution, that seems to work. And truly, it is No Segoe on my system (I have 2 different systems using it, one on an LCD and the other on a CRT)! Here are my before and after results…
Start/Run dialog with Segoe UI:
Start/Run dialog after running NoSegoe, selecting Arial:
Internet Explorer 7 Error Screen with Segoe:
Internet Explorer 7 Error Screen with Arial:
Overall, I feel forcing a font that does not render well unless ClearType is selected is a terrible ommision by Microsoft. First, on CRT’s, for me at least, using ClearType is a very poor option. The fonts are blurry, and they strain my eyes. Using Segoe UI and ClearType are even undesireable on my 22 inch LCD system! There should be an option in Vista to change the Shell Font completely, not partially.
So, the file below will hopefully help. It has been tested on my 2 Vista Ultimate machines. It should be safe to run, as only some registry entries are modified. You can undo any changes, and .REG files are included that show what the tool does (just open the .REG files in Notpad). You could even use the .REG files instead of using the tool if you want.
Users have reported that this fix also works in Office 2007.
Please note that even though I believe the settings made with this tool or .REG files are safe, the author can’t take any responsibility out of any event that occurs from your use of the program or included files. Use at your own risk!
Added important note (thanks to user feedback): If you use PhotoShop CS3 by Adobe, then note that Adobe REQUIRES Segoe UI. The poster below (thanks Reine) came up with a fix which is to right click Photoshop, select Properties, and set the Compatibility Mode to Windows XP SP2. This workaround tricks Photoshop into using Tahoma. You may want to contact Adobe and tell them your reasons to not want to use Segoe UI. See their Knowlege Base article at http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402311.
Download: http://www.fsxtreme.com/files/NoSegoe.zip (36KB)
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I figured that I would comment just to let anyone who might be interested know that NoSegoe does indeed change the Office 2007 menu fonts as well.
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Yes! Finally no eyestrain anymore! Even on quite an expensive TFT screen it was giving me headaches. You-are-my-hero!
And just for the record: it changed all Office 2007 interface fonts on Windows XP.
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Well, it kinda works. It got rid of Segoe, but it didn’t really get rid of ClearType. Something tells me it’s just something we’re all going to have to get used to…
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You have to turn off ClearType yourself. This is outlined in the instructions…
First, make sure that ClearType is turned off, and Font Smoothing is set to Standard. To do this, follow the steps below:
1. Right-click on your desktop, and select “Personalize”.
2. Select “Window Color and Appearance”.
3. Select “Effects…”
4. Make sure “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:” is selected.
5. Make sure “Standard” is in the drop down list. Then press OK and Apply. -
No, I did that, but there are still elements to Vista that will never ever unClearType certain things such as the start bar, etc.
Also, I don’t know if this is directly related, but Windows wouldn’t open Photoshop when I had your registry edits. It works now that I restored them.
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Just wanted to say *THANKS*, I was looking so long for this solution, great that you did it!
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Dude,
That sounds very strange. The Start bar on my system is very clean. But then I do not use the Aero desktop. My system is almost exactly like XP after turning off UAC, and resetting permissions on the Program Files folder.
See http://www.fsxtreme.com/images/start.gif
The PhotoShop note does not make any sense, but who knows. I would not think changing a few font registry entries would cause this. But thanks for noting it. It may be something to report to Adobe as a bug. It may not be related to the registry changes, but then again, it could.
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I have the same problem. I’ve been trying to get rid of this rubbish font for ages! So thanks Steve for the fix!
However, using the “Windows Vista Basic” color scheme, i still have clear type enabled on, for example the “start bar” and the “Personalization” dialog.
Does anyone out there know how to completely disable Vista using clear type for anything? I’ve looked in TuneUp Utilities 2008 with no luck.
It must be possible as the non-areo theme seems to do it.
I can vouch for the Dude, my Photoshop has also stopped working since the fix…
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Chris,
Right click your desktop, and select Personalize, then Windows Color and Appearance, then select Effects. Make sure the top box (”Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts”) is disabled.
But if you have Segoe UI active, it will be blurry still.
I have Photoshop now, but have not installed it. Maybe it is a bug they should know about, or it could be a registry adjustment we can find.
Thanks for the note…
Steve
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Good job,
i had the same problem with photoshop. Simply start the programm in
compatibility mode (windows xp sp2) and everything works well. I don’t
know why but it is so.Greetings
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Perfect! This works! But:
The font size is to large. E.g. the Run-dialog in vista. Is it possible to change that also, without editing the mui files? thanks.
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Hello,
I have found that the Segoe UI font is hinted for some sizes (pixel count). Sengoe UI at 9 pts – the dafault Windows font and size – looks neat and clean at these DPI settings (display properties -> settings -> advanced -> change dpi): 96 to 103, 112 to 119, 128 to 135.
My display is set up to 1280 x 960 pixels, 128 DPI, font smoothing turned off and it looks good.
Unfortunately, MS Office uses Sengoe UI at 8 pts and it looks crappy. And there are still some parts of Windows that use font smoothing even when it is turned off (Open/Save dialog for example).
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Ondra… Yes, but then you get into one of my other dislikes of Windows. When you scale fonts to something other than the default 96 DPI settings in Windows. This can cause large anomalies in the ways some application windows are presented. If applications do not specifically handle non-standard DPI settings, buttons can be messed up, things out of alignment, etc.
But your numbers above are interesting…
Phax… similar to the above, maybe you have your font settings to something other than 96DPI. Just guessing. I am not sure how to customize the font size with the Segoe UI fix. I tried it, but it did not seem to take.
Steve
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Awsome Vista is bearable again, I didn’t mind cleartype at first from the XP days but it makes some font look too weird. I use OS X as well but I find the font on Apple more bareable I like the original XP standard font.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you. Worked great… my biggest frustation was the folder names in the left bar on Outlook 2007, and this nailed that.
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the dialoges (for example run…) now have tahoma font, but size 9. can i change it to 8?
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I do not think this can be done through the registry. That is because the run dialog font size is called from within its own EXE, rather than looking outside itself for the font size. So internally, it is set to 9 in the EXE, rather than looking up 8 in the registry.
You would have to modify the EXE itself (such as the one that handles the Start/Run dialog), which seems rather risky.
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thank you so much! Steve.
This fix also works perfectly for Office 2007 on Windows XP (SP2)!
I used to delete Segoe UI fonts to force Office 2007 to use Tahoma instead, which worked with a little glitch, plus it’s still broken because when installed other Office Applications such as Project/Visio/SharePoint Designer, it’s no longer work because Windows Installer keeps trying to repair it self to have the deleted Segoe UI fonts back.
Steve your fix is simply one clean shot. superb! Thank you!
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Hello,
I was working on a similar solution myself, as i like others who have mentioned here have had nasty eyestrain trying to look at those blurry fonts.
Two things i note.
1) This also works in Server 2008 if you use that at all.
2) If you use;“Segoe UI (TrueType)”=”tahoma.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)”=”tahomabd.ttf”
“Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)”=”tahoma.ttf”
“Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)”=”tahomabd.ttf”instead in the registry files you should be able to shut the picky programs like Photoshop up.
Ta,
Dizz-E -
Hi Steve,
I read this blog with interest. I am a radiologist, and so I make my living with my eyes (and I consider them to be fairly sharp). My eyes cannot accommodate to ClearType fonts. I would like to remove all traces of ClearType from Windows Vista, but I wonder whether your program will do this, particularly with the Aero display settings enabled? I have reverted back to “Windows Classic” and get mostly legible fonts, save the Office 2007 applications and the occasional pop-up webpage, but I would like to use Aero…
Thanks for your help,
DB -
This application does not actually disable Cleartype, but you do that yourself.
1. Right-click your desktop. Select Personalize.
2. Select Window Color and Appearance.
3. Click Effects.
4. Uncheck the top box that says “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts.”Restart and Cleartype should be off completely.
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Thanks Steve. I did that before writing you, but I suspect that there are elements of the Aero interface that have Segoe permanently embedded. I actually called Microsoft Technical Support and they confirmed this. The only way I have found to get rid of it completely is to use the “Windows Classic” or “Windows Standard” display protocols. As I would like to take advantage of the niceties of Aero, I have reverted back to that -and- run your program which has helped immensely… the places I work with text most are now free of that crap. In your opinion, what is the best way to get this feedback to someone at Microsoft who might actually do something about addressing this in a future service pack? I think there is enough data now to confidently say that individuals’ preferences relate primarily to differences in their perception, not the CRT vs LCD thing.
Appreciate your time and thoughts.
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I do not know the best place to do let them know. I filed a note with Adobe because their latest Photoshop required Segoe UI, unless you changed your configuration to make Photoshop think you are on XP, and I never heard anything back.
I think the masses expect CRT monitors to go away. But I do agree that the option to NOT support an alternative to Segoe UI is a huge ommission by Microsoft.
I would maybe try their Newsgroups… You could start here: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.mspx.
It may get someone’s attention that could get word to the right people.
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To all of those who post about setting clear-type to standard as a fix – you are wrong as it isn’t that simple. There are times clear type is embedded within the theme (and confirmed by David who contacted M$) and this embedded clear type use is not responsive to the ‘clear-type standard’ fix.
Essentially a third party theme will need to be created that has these components set to all normal type (no clear type at all) as I doubt M$ will release a new theme to correct this problem in Vista (they have bigger problems in Vista to deal with).
In the mean time, I don’t require Vista and have downgraded (upgraded) to XP Pro – much more stable and driver compliant and NO cleartype. -
I reviewed a msstyles file a found 117 instances in which a cleartype flag was implicityly activated. These flagged fonts would present in the them as defined solely by the theme and not by the user’s ‘clear-type’ settings. Removing these cleartype flags from the msstyles file remove the instances in which users cannot remove the cleartyped font (for the most part as there there only a couple very minor instances in which cleartype was still observed but this was very minor in application).
In reviewing this msstyles file, I found other slight incongruencies within M$’s application of themes, so these cleartype problems are not the only problems apparent.Here is a screen shot of a visualstyle without the cleartype flags.
http://i38.tinypic.com/2aizic.jpgThis vistualstyle of based off of Embedded for Vista Basic by ~psycoB at deviantART.
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A week before I had my old XP and 19″ TFT monitor and every font showed perfectly sharp. Now I have a new pc with Vista and 24″ WFP screen. I was so disappointed with the blurry edges on the shell-font of Vista. My eyes were getting very tired after looking at my screen for a few minutes. I tried many settings/adjustments, however to no solution. I even considered to downgrade to XP.
But now with Steve’s utility installed I am a happy Vista first-time-user (so far).This is what I did:
- I installed Steve’s NOSEGOE and choosed Tahoma as the new font
- I then disabled ClearType, following the instruction as mentioned by Steve. This made the edges of the new Tahoma font even more sharper.As suppose to comments here above from Photoshop users, I run the new CS4 and have no problems at all.
So, no more blurry font edges.
THANK YOU Steve! ….and greetings from Gouda in The Netherlands. -
This patch does not work on my computer. I have tried with the patch and reg file (Shell Font – Tahoma.reg)… and restartinig.
Take a look to the pic:
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David,
I checked out your pictures, and it is working, except you have the Vista Aero desktop enabled as your theme, which uses advanced graphics. Try switching to Windows Standard or Classic themes. Otherwise, you have to use your hardware chip (I think this is what Vista Aero uses) for font rendering, rather than the classic rendering style.
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Hi Steve,
What do you mean with “hardware chip/font rendering” in order to change Segoe to Tahoma on Vista with Aero theme?
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I think in your picture, that is not Segoe. I think it is simply the hardware rendered font. Actually, all fonts are rendered through hardware, but some may be rendered through the accelerator chip.
Anyway, try going out of the Aero desktop. I do not think you can change that as much as other screens. Think of it almost like a game interface with Aero.
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The previous image was resized. Try this one:
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f36/Awesoft/cap.png
Is there any way to change the fonts or disable the cleartype?
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You have to change to Windows Classic or “Windows Clasico” as it shows in your language. You can see in the right-side box that the fonts are correct. The Aero does not have the regular font rendering we may want.
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Thanks Steve, this has been a massive annoyance ever since I installed Office 2007. Works flawless with XP SP3, Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 2.2.
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Thanks a lot Steve, i have almost aborted office 2007 and reverted to previous version until I found your solution. It’s fantastic, you should get reward from Microsoft, thanks to solutions like this people can still use their crappy products.
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Thanks, it works great.
So many times i search for a solution for this problem.Vista SP1!
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I had the problem in some vista themes in the taskbar and some systemwindows cleartype cant disabled.
I found that this is a bug in the theme self.
There are some lines there stand:
50x, “Segoe UI, xxx, Quality:Cleartype”I have download PE Explorer and remove “,Quality:Cleartype”.
And???
All Windows are without cleartype!Its cool man:-)
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Steve, I came accross your site, and It was great to find likeminded people that hate clear type / segoa. Personally cleartype gives me headache, and since installing office 2007 ( XP PRO SP3), each time I remove segoa from control panel, MS Word / Exel want to reinstal it. I then have to cancel instalation to prevent segoe returning back! So frustrating. I ran your software, but unfortunately it did not seem to cure problem.
Each time I restart MS word, the installer seeks segoe, and resets word/exel/outlook etc with this crappy font.
Please could you help, many thanks
Dan -
Great stuff Steve. I’d also like to increase the font size for readability (rather than using a DPI change which can mess up websites/forms etc) – is it easy to do? Is there a simple regedit I can do?
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Just wanted to say thank you for this great tool! I just wish I could have the useful features of Aero in the Classic themes because I can’t tolerate the fuzziness of Aero’s UI!
Thanks again; you saved our lives.
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Dan, this seems to be unrelated to this problem. It is likely related to how you have Word setup, or some other feature. Try right clicking Word, and select Properties, and run in Windows XP compatibility mode.
Simon, yes, setting font sizes to anything other than default 96 DPI can mess up many screen and window layouts. There is no easy way to do what you want, except just to set these Window elements in the Advance settings of your Display Options. Click on each element, and set it accordingly.
Steve
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Steve,
Thank you so much for this file!!!
I am running Windows XP and Office 2003 and I have not dealt with Segoe UI or ClearType, aside from when I disabled ClearType after upgrading to Internet Explorer 7.0 a while back. But today I downloaded the upgrade for Windows Live Messenger and began regretting the decision immediately. The new version includes an installation of the Segoe UI font, which I absolutely dread!! The new version of Messenger uses this font and also appears to permanently change the hotmail display to this as well. So even after I uninstalled all of the components of Windows Live Messenger, and followed instructions to remove the Segoe font from my computer, the main page of my hotmail email account still displayed the same damned headache-inducing fuzzy font. That was until I ran your program. It worked like a charm. Now everything appears back to normal. Thanks!Geoff
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I don’t know what Microsoft are using for monitors, or what they are thinking.
I assure everybody that Cleartype and uncleartyped Segoe ALSO LOOK TERRIBLE ON ALL NOTEBOOK LCDS, which are now the most popular computers in use. I see exactly the issues you see, and so does everybody I show.
I can only think 20″+ LCDs too close with the sharpness setting too artificially high are in use at Microsoft.
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Rob,
Yes, I do agree, and I updated my article. I had not had an LCD monitor before, now I have one on a newer computer, and sure enough it was still a problem on the 22-inch LCD.
Steve
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Thanks.
Is there some way we can ensure this monstrous OS flaw is fixed for Windows 7?
Maybe if everyone contacted here for starters?
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Please keep it up!
Bad news: Windows 7 RC renders Segoe without cleartype even worse than Vista.
Good news: saynotosegoe appears to work just as well in Windows 7.
Worst news: Windows 7 engineers have replied to my concern – they don’t think this is a problem, because of the ability to disable or tweak cleartype. Perhaps they think the flashy new wallpapers will distract me from the blurry mess of unreadable text throughout my OS.
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Rob,
You should show them this thread. I can only imagine the numbers who do not know there is another option (workaround actually).
Do the engineers know there is not an option to change Segoe UI to another font?
Steve
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Excellent – it also works on Windows 7 RC1
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Thank you for this. I actually get bad headaches from this font and I am happy that I can use Windows 7 now.
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Steve,
can you add more fonts in this application? For example will be good have same for “Courier New”
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