How To Change The Fonts In Windows 8
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?
Solution 1:
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.
Solution 2:
In Windows 8
Open regedit (press Win+R and type
regedit)-
Edit the following value and replace the font that you want:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes\MSShellDlg -
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.
Solution 3:
You can do that without any third-party software, and without local admin access. Open up the Registry Editor and navigate here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
The fonts used are stored in these binary values:
-
CaptionFont: window captions -
IconFont: most text in Windows utilities (including desktop icons) -
MenuFont: menu strips and submenu entries -
MessageFont: message boxes -
SmCaptionFont: "small captions"? (TechNet) -
StatusFont: status bar strips
Each of those entries starts with a four-byte value specifying the font size. It's a number in little-endian and binary-NOT'ed after adding 2, for some reason. Unless you need font sizes over 255 points, you can just look at the first byte. Since the binary inverse of F4 is 0B (11 in decimal), the default IconFont size is 9 points. Decreasing that first byte will increase the font size and vice versa.
The font name starts at byte 1C (fifth byte on the fourth row). Since it's in UTF16-LE, there must be a zero byte after each character. To enter a normal character, select the text in the right half of the window and just type it as normal on your keyboard. To zero a byte, select it in the middle (in the hexadecimal section) and press the zero key. Since the string is null-terminated, 00 00 signals the end of the font name.
This is the default value of IconFont:
And after I set it to Comic Sans MS:
Log off and back on for the changes to take effect.
Beautifully horrifying.
Note: These screenshots were taken on Windows 10, but this procedure works in Windows 8 as well.
Solution 4:
If you're looking for really quick solution, try to use the tool "Advanced System Font Changer" which is portable (no installation needed) and ready to use. It solved my issue quickly, after I spent a bit time for searching it.
There is no sense to look for the options in Windows 8 because you'll only waste time.
https://www.wintools.info/index.php/advanced-system-font-changer
https://www.wintools.info/Download/advchange.exe
This solution is much easier and faster than the solution with "old program from Win95 called 'Plus!'" presented by Brainout.
Solution 5:
There's this "Windows 8 Font Changer.exe" tool floating around: https://mega.co.nz/#!bVNFQaZC!hIHtclnY2esgsv6zWDVuobCYttnSJb6xXnxRXzi-PR0
It seems to be safe: https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/99b5dade9cd018e2ff9d4a6597021468da1c5ed3a140cc50d4f455305e5aee4b/analysis/
The site on its about however seems to be a spammy ad-bait link (it redirects various links and ultimately to facebook.com): http://www.ogresite.com/p/windows-8-font-changer.html