Monday, October 08, 2007

Windows Vista: Disabling ClearType

ClearType is a Windows technology that is designed to improve the image quality of the fonts by smoothing them out, which improves readability on LCD monitors. Windows Vista has this feature enabled by default.

In Windows XP, ClearType was disabled by default, so if you wanted to use it you had to turn it on. Some people might not like how this technology make their fonts look on their screen, and may want to disable it. Follow the instructions below to find out how.
  • Right-click an empty area on your desktop and select Personalize.
  • Click 'Windows Color and Appearance'.
  • Click the link "Open classic appearance properties for more color options'.
  • Press the Effects... button.
  • From the dropdown menu under 'Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts' select Standard.
  • Press the two OK buttons, and close the Personalization window.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It works for most stuff, but has no effects on the elements of the control panel for example. Vista sucks!

Anonymous said...

If you disable ClearType, the Vista UI font "Segoe UI" will be very hard to read. For instance, the letter "m" will have far too much space after it. You will have to manually change this font to Tahoma or some other font if you want a usable system.

Some parts of Vista use WPF, which always uses ClearType regardless of your system setting.

Don't get Vista if you can't use ClearType. It is designed only to work properly with ClearType on. I wish I had known.