Replace Windows XP default font (Tahoma)

Solution 1:

It seems that no one ever actually answered the question you asked, instead trying to help you find an easier way to do what you wanted. If you do want to actually replace the Tahoma font from Windows XP with the one from Windows 7, read on.

You can do this with a Linux boot disk or WinPE, but there's also another way that doesn't involve booting another operating system. You must do all of this from an Administrator account.

1. Make sure Tahoma is not in use by shutting down all programs. Right click on Desktop > Properties > Appearance tab > Click "Advanced" > Go through every item and if change all fonts to something besides Tahoma.
2. Download a program called Unlocker. Google for it. When you install it, be sure to create a Start Menu group if asked.
3. Go to Start > All Programs > Unlocker > Start Unlocker Assistant.
4. Open the font folder for Windows XP (in Control Panel) and try to delete Tahoma (truetype). First you'll get an error message, but then you'll get the Unlocker window.
5. In that window, click the drop down and select "Delete". You should get another dialog confirming the deletion.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for Tahoma Bold (truetype).
7. Drag the Windows 7 font files (tahoma.ttf and tahomabd.ttf) into the Windows XP Fonts folder.
8. Right Click on Desktop > Properties > Appearance tab > Click "Advanced" > Go through every item and change everything back to Tahoma.
9. If the fonts appear blank, you may need to reset your font cache. Change the font back to something else, then wse the method in steps 4-5 to delete C:\WINDOWS\system32\FNTCACHE.DAT. After you restart your computer, repeat step 8.

If you would rather use a WinPE or Linux, do step 1, but replace steps 2-6 with using your boot disk to delete the font. You'll need to delete two files: tahoma.ttf and tahomabd.ttf from C:\WINDOWS\FONTS. To be safe, also go ahead and delete the file in step 9. Then boot back into Windows XP and follow steps 7 and 8. And, yes, step 7 must be done inside Windows XP--it will not work if you copy the files using any other operating system, as it won't actually install the font.

Solution 2:

Right Click on Desktop > Properties > Appearance tab > Click "Advanced" > Go through every item and if available, change the font to your new font

On Vista, the the default font is called Segoe UI.

Solution 3:

I just had the same problem and found a more technical but on the other hand way easier solution by doing the install manually...

Copy the new font files somewhere to your system (i.e. C:\Temp\)

Then use the command line (Windows-Explorer won't work here since it automatically starts the install routine) to copy the files to c:\Windows\Fonts under a different name:

copy c:\Temp\tahoma.ttf c:\Windows\Fonts\tahoma_0.ttf
copy c:\Temp\tahomabd.ttf c:\Windows\Fonts\tahomabd_0.ttf

After that use the Registry-Editor to redirect the font names to the new files:

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts and find the entries Tahoma Regular (TrueType) and Tahoma Bold (TrueType) and change it's values from "tahoma.ttf" to "tahoma_0.ttf" and "tahomabd.ttf" to "tahomabd_0.ttf" respectively.

Now you only need to resart your system and then the new font files are used.