Smooth Fonts on Windows XP - Sometimes they appear, sometimes they don't...

More of interest than anything else, slightly inconvenient though...


On our XP machines (without roaming profiles), sometimes when a user logs on, the screenfonts are not set to 'standard' smoothing, which makes it look rubbish on the screen (especially on large flat screens)! Just wondering what decides whether the font is smoothed or not on the first logon.

 

Dunno about the setting but especially for those screens, are you familiar with Microsoft Cleartype? You can turn it on and configure it from that link.

Makes a truly amazing difference on LDC screens and significant improvement on many CRT screens.

 

Very familiar ... I was just wondering why, when you logon for the first time, sometimes for users it sets it up with NO clear-type at all automatically.. sometimes it sets it to 'standard' smoothing.

 

In reference to "Clear Type ", you can also download this and run it from your harddrive at your leisure and desire without being online:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

As for Smooth type, I dunno? Sorry.

 

Many thanks for your help.

 

Found this on kellys site. It's a possible workaround for "Font Smoothing" part of this issue:
See (number) #236:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Perhaps if you keep it handy on the desktop it may be a bit quicker just to use this when windows thinks you don't know what you want or forgets what you want.

---For the Archives (in case someone wants to check this hkey/value manually)

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothing "= "2 "
"FontSmoothingType "=dword:00000002