How To Change The Fonts In Windows 8

04
2013-09
  • Halcyon

    In Windows 7, there is an option to change the fonts for things such as the active title bar, menu, etc. It was found by opening the Window Color and Appearance settings in the Control Panel. I just installed Windows 8 and would like to change the fonts, but I can't find anything to change the actual fonts (there is however a limited drop-down list to change a few font sizes in the appearance settings). Does anyone how to change the fonts used in Windows 8?

    • Answers
  • Randolph West

    My educated guess is that they're heading for a unified look and feel on Windows platforms, so it's not adjustable.

    I found some entries in the Registry (HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics, amongst others), but they are stored in binary and therefore difficult to change. Segoe seems to be the favourite.

  • Indrek

    In Windows 8

    1. Open regedit (press Win+R and type regedit)

    2. Edit the following value and replace the font that you want:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes\MSShellDlg

    3. Edit the following value and replace the font that you want:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes\MSShellDlg 2

    As for font size, go to Control Panel → Video → Advanced Appearance, and change it there.


    • Related Question

    Windows: How to change the system/dialog font?
  • Ashwin

    I switched over to Cleartype on Windows XP about 3 years ago. And in the Theme settings I used Vista (made-for-Cleartype) fonts for all the UI widgets.

    However, certain system dialogs of Windows and Windows utilities still show up in the older Windows font. That now looks butt-ugly under Cleartype. Anyone knows how to change this system font too?


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  • Daniel Rikowski

    Sometimes the font is hard-coded into the application.

    In that case you have no chance to change their font through the global Windows settings.

    Remember when Microsoft decided to lighten the dialog background color a little bit? (Windows 2000/ME) Suddenly many applications had dialogs with a mixture of dark and light gray colors. (Most times when glyphs/icons were not transparent and instead had the old dialog color background)