ClearType and Segoe UI - Why does Microsoft hate us?

By WinClassicFan
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WinClassicFan

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Edit: new solution here: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/890802-windows-aero-tahoma-font/

Well, I think it's fair to say that Microsoft has put those of us who aren't fans of ClearType in quite a situation, and the key to that is Segoe UI. ClearType really doesn't agree with my eyes, it's not an option for me to have it enabled - the only font that it actually makes look good is Segoe UI. So I turn it off and ironically now Segoe UI is the only font that looks absolutely horrible, because it was obviously created FOR ClearType - it's very, very rough without it and the standard Windows smoothing makes it look overly fuzzy and blurry.

So what options do I have? I can turn off all smoothing, but that just makes things worse - Segoe UI looks horrible, like a 1980s video game font, and now everything else that is bold or larger size looks rough and pixelated too. I love the XP-style smoothing that was carried over to Vista and 7, it works and makes things look good unlike ClearType which adds additional colors. So that's not an option either.

My only other option is to try to eliminate Segoe UI. I can change all the fonts to Tahoma 8pt from Personalize -> Window Color -> Advanced Appearance Settings. But that hardly changes half the text out there, Segoe UI is still everywhere. I can eliminate more of it by switching to the Classic theme, which I have, and that takes care of about 70% of it maybe but it's still in a LOT of places.

So my last resort is to go into the registry and replace all Segoe UI fonts with something else. Ideally that would be Tahoma 8pt, which is XP's and 7's Classic theme default font. However, the default system font is Segoe UI 9pt and while you can change the font itself, you cannot change the size. So, after doing that all Segoe UI becomes Tahoma 9pt, which is significantly larger than Tahoma 8pt and that not only looks bad but it messes up a lot of applications where the text cannot fit in well. So I end up changing it to MS Sans Serif which is a system font that does not have a 9pt size, so it defaults to 8pt and it looks somewhat normal. That's my only option really - all the other fonts look too ridiculous and/or are too big at 9pt.

So I'm thinking I finally solved this - it doesn't look nearly as well as Tahoma 8pt, but at this point I'm fine with that. The problem though is that MS Sans Serif is a .fon font so it's impervious to ALL smoothing - so whenever I'm online and there is something written in larger Segoe UI or wherever 9pt+ of it is present in the system, Windows defaults to MS Sans Serif the larger sizes of which look really bad un-smoothed. And even though it is 8pt, it's just not the intended system font for the OS, so every now and then there are irregularities. The Windows 7 calculator, for instance, does not agree with it, so I've been using Windows XP's calc.exe on Windows 7...

But at this point there is no other solution, so I'm just gonna live with it until one of two things happen - Microsoft gives us the option to change the system font to Tahoma 8pt or another font that does not look horrible without ClearType, which is about 1% likely to happen, or until the regular smoothing gets improved to be able to handle non-ClearTyped Segoe UI and make it look good. I think there's a high probability the latter will happen actually - I'm pretty sure I read something about a significant improvement in smoothing coming with the final version of .NET Framework 4.0 but we'll see...

Anyways, I don't know why I'm posting this, I know there isn't a solution other than the one I described. And I know from spending a few days googling this issue and trying to figure out a solution, that there are a lot of people in a similar situation. So why Microsoft would force this on us is beyond me. There are a ton of people out there who don't like ClearType, but like traditional smoothing, and there just isn't a viable option for us at this point. When Vista came out most people were like oh well, screw it I'll just stick with XP for now they'll fix it eventually. Now 7 is out, the pressure is there to move on, people are getting 4GB+ RAM, DirectX 11 is out and this issue is still there.

Blah, sorry for the long pointless post, I just spent a few days trying to come up with a solution and that's all I got, so... Just wanted to post something somewhere about it I guess.

Edited by Colin-uk
Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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The XP style smoothing is ClearType. Unless you're referring to the greyscale anti-aliasing which dates back to NT4/Win95. The greyscale rendering won't be improving much, since if it was going it it would have happened sometime in the last decade or so.

Have you tried adjusting the ClearType settings? you shouldn't be seeing the colour fringes unless you're looking at the monitor on a bad angle or your eyesight is different to the majority of the population (which does happen)

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Salty Wagyu

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I did exactly the same as you OP. Changed all my fonts to Tahoma in Appearances settings and the registry and turned cleartype off, which fixes about 90% of it. Action Center and similar windows are still in segoe/cleartype tho, but thankfully I don't look at those screens much. Just dealing with some cut-off text can be a bit annoying yes :(

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WinClassicFan

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  The_Decryptor said:
The XP style smoothing is ClearType. Unless you're referring to the greyscale anti-aliasing which dates back to NT4/Win95. The greyscale rendering won't be improving much, since if it was going it it would have happened sometime in the last decade or so.

Have you tried adjusting the ClearType settings? you shouldn't be seeing the colour fringes unless you're looking at the monitor on a bad angle or your eyesight is different to the majority of the population (which does happen)

Yes, I was referring to the gray-scale AA, the one you can uncheck from System -> Advanced -> Performance. What you're saying makes sense... I hope they come up with some sort of an alternative though. For instance, an option to enable ClearType ONLY on Segoe UI, but disable it on everything else, that would be perfect. Or offer Tahoma 8pt. as an alternative, which I think is much less likely.

I've tried adjusting it of course, and some combinations look much better than others, I can manage to make Segoe UI look great, but as soon as I open a web page everything else that ClearType touches is quite literally a pain to look at. :(

  aarste said:
I did exactly the same as you OP. Changed all my fonts to Tahoma in Appearances settings and the registry and turned cleartype off, which fixes about 90% of it. Action Center and similar windows are still in segoe/cleartype tho, but thankfully I don't look at those screens much. Just dealing with some cut-off text can be a bit annoying yes :(

Yep... I might switch to Tahoma as well. Pt. 9 looks enormous, but it's better to deal with that than large non-smoothed pixelated MS Sans Serif .fon from the days of Windows 3.1... So many people have done this now, I can't believe we have to be dealing with this crap...

Here's another guy who asked Microsoft the exact same question:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums...77-18ff1803c9ce

"I will report it to our feedback team"... Good luck with that.

Edited by WinClassicFan
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The_Decryptor Veteran

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  WinClassicFan said:
Yes, I was referring to the gray-scale AA, the one you can uncheck from System -> Advanced -> Performance. What you're saying makes sense... I hope they come up with some sort of an alternative though. For instance, an option to enable ClearType ONLY on Segoe UI, but disable it on everything else, that would be perfect. Or offer Tahoma 8pt. as an alternative, which I think is much less likely.

I've tried adjusting it of course, and some combinations look much better than others, I can manage to make Segoe UI look great, but as soon as I open a web page everything else that ClearType touches is quite literally a pain to look at. :(

...

This issue can get muddled with some of the terms, for example ClearType is really just the sub-pixel anti-aliasing, it's applied equally to Segoe and Tahoma, the only difference in their rendering is due to hinting. And the hinting is pretty much the same between no AA, greyscale AA and sub-pixel AA.

The difference doesn't come from the hinting or the anti-aliasing used, it comes entirely because Segoe and Tahoma are 2 different fonts that looks different.

Apprentice

phatphunky

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don't know if this is relevant but you can change the system font, just not the size.

I hate the Segoe font as well so I entered the following into my registry...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[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"

I still wasn't happy with Tahoma at 9pt but found out there is a 'light' version of Segoe called

'Segoe UI Light" and have been happy ever since. Replace "Tahoma" with any font you like.

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Eric G.

Posted
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Hello Everyone,

I'd like to offer my solution, which, I believe, is an improvement upon that which phatphunky offered. phatphunky's solution is exactly the same as NoSegoe, which I explain in the next paragraph. However, I have figured out a way to use Tahoma at 8pts.

In Windows 7 and Vista, one has the option to change portions of the user interface (UI) to whatever font he or she desires. Unfortunately it is not an option to change certain parts of the interface. After having thoroughly searched for a solution to change all instances of the Windows 7 UI font from Segoe UI to Tahoma (the old default in previous versions of Windows), I eventually found Steve Halpern?s NoSegoe solution. It simply uses the Registry to specify Tahoma (or any other font of your choosing) an alternative to Segoe. More information on NoSegoe can be found here: http://steve.fsxtreme.com/blogs/2008/01/16...rtype-on-vista/. While this completely clears up the interface on screens that cannot properly render Cleartype and Segoe UI, things still look awkward. This is due to the fact that Segoe is generally used at a font size of 9pts, whereas Tahoma was always displayed at 8pts.

I was able to create my own solution to this problem by modifying the default Aero theme. The only changes made in my theme were to the font settings. All instances of Segoe UI where changed to Tahoma. Additionally, all 9pt instances (which constitutes most of them) were set to 8pts, the others were left at their default font size. The Aero theme was modified using Vista Style Builder (http://vistastylebuilder.com/).

My fixed Aero theme can be used by itself, however it will only replace instances of Segoe in the Windows user interface. External programs that are hard coded to use Segoe UI, even ones included with Windows 7, such as Calculator and Resource Monitor, will continue to use Segoe. For best results, and in order to completely eliminate Segoe UI, I recommend using NoSegoe in conjunction with the fixed Aero Theme. The Aero Theme (Fixed) package only works with Windows 7, however NoSegoe works with both Vista and 7.

Attachments (Alternative Links)

NoSegoe: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ADESI1N8 (Updated to fully remove Segoe UI)

Aero Theme (Fixed): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EX347PJL

NoSegoe.zipFetching info...

Aero_Theme_Fixed.zipFetching info...

Grand Master

ozgeek

Posted
Posted

It's a matter of opinion. You might not like it but it looks like the majority of computer users love cleartype. Maybe you have ****ty hardware. It's designed for LCD monitors in mind, not CRT. On CRT, everything would look blurry or badly rendered like you are describing, so are you using a CRT monitor at all?

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Advent

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I don't know about Windows 7, but for me I've been using GDI++ as I cannot stand ClearType's normal rendering. Everything looks so thin and on my 26" @ 1920x1200 everything is a pain to read and focus on.

Here is wikipedia with ClearType:

cleartype.png

and here it is with GDI++:

gdi.png

Can ClearType on Windows 7 get any where near what GDI++ does?

Grand Master

Zain Adeel

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Posted

there is something wrong with ur cleartype.. im sorry.. its not like that on my pc and im using default cleartype..

but yes i did notice if u go to control panel to setup the cleartype it messes it up completely and it becomes weird..

leme show u my cleartype pic ..

and no!!.. cleartype is not blurry on a CRT.. i use a CRT and its fine..

and one more thing.

i use internet explorer.. no firefox for me.. i used it in the vista era.. not anymore as internet explorer is good enough.

post-285248-1261036535_thumb.jpg

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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cleartype%20differences.png

All 3 of those lines use "ClearType", yet all 3 look different, there's more to rendering text that just what kind of AA there is.

  vette said:
...

Can ClearType on Windows 7 get any where near what GDI++ does?

No, you can't make it that ugly.

Grand Master

Zain Adeel

Posted
Posted

and no..

i would recommend.. dont use the control panel thingy..

ull notice a weird thing after u change the settings..

when the glass of a window has text underneath it will show weird red and blue color around it..

but it wont if u dont touch the control panel settings for cleartype.

Community Regular

Advent

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  TokiToki said:
Have you tried using "Adjust ClearType text" in the control panel? You should be able to make it a bit closer to GDI++.

Sorry should of said, I'm on XP. I was just wondering for the future.

  The_Decryptor said:
No, you can't make it that ugly.

How is making the text more readable "ugly"?

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