Windows XP – Fix Default Font Issues

fontswindows xp

I'm on Windows XP.

Some time ago, while trying out a number of different font management programs, something went wrong. I don't know what happened but now some applications, in some of their GUI controls, use the System(12) font instead of the Windows default one (which should be Microsoft Sans Serif 8, I think).

This happens, for example, with most installers (at the beginning of the installation, in subsequent dialogs the fonts display just fine), and a number of programs.

Here's Microsoft/Sysinternals' Autoruns:

Autoruns

You can see the tab names, as well as the text in the bottom panel, displayed with the System(12) font. On a different machine, they simply use "MS Sans Serif 8" (detected using HwndSpy).

I tried:

  • deleting the Windows font cache file (c:\windows\system32\fntcache.dat)
  • modifying the registry values for "MS Shell Dlg" and "MS Shell Dlg 2", as explained here

…to no avail.

Any suggestions on what else I could try to have the default font back?

Best Answer

You've probably uninstalled the ‘MS Sans Serif’ font.

Autoruns's dialog resources are all specified with the property:

FONT 8, "MS Sans Serif"

Instead of one of the more usual UI fonts such as the ‘MS Shell Dlg’ mapping. So without ‘MS Sans Serif’ or any substitute available, Windows falls back to the horrible last-resort default font, ‘System’.

‘MS Sans Serif’ is a bitmap font so even on a standard system Autoruns's windows may not look right as ClearType won't be used, as it would be with the default ‘MS Shell Dlg’ mapping to Tahoma or ‘Microsoft Sans Serif’ (which is a different font to ‘MS Sans Serif’, just to confuse you).

So re-installing the font (file ‘sserife.fon’) should restore the usual behaviour... alternatively you could set a FontSubstitute to map it to another font you do have installed, such as:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"MS Sans Serif"="Tahoma"
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