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How do I easily uninstall fonts? - DeeBye - 08-14-2003
A while ago, I downloaded and installed a pretty large freeware font pack. I now want to get rid of all of them, and revert my system back to the default Windows XP fonts. I also don't want to do a complete Windows re-install, duh :)
I know that I can manually uninstall each and every one of the offending fonts, but this will prove to be a pain in the ass. I cannot tell what is a default Windows font just by looking at the font name, and I have way too many installed fonts to check each and every one of them individually.
What I'd like to do is to uninstall ALL of my fonts en masse, and re-install just the default Windows fonts. I have my OEM Windows XP Home disk, so this should be easy, right? Can anyone tell me how to do this, step-by-step? I would usually give this kind of thing a whirl on my own, but I'm afraid of being left fontless if it doesn't work quite right.
I've checked around Microsoft's website, and browsed around a bunch of Google links, but I cannot seem to find the help I need.
Also, assuming that I am able to revert my system to the default Windows XP fonts, is there any way that I can add more fonts WITHOUT adding them to the general /Fonts directory? I'd like to be able to sort my fonts a bit better than lumping them all into one directory. Can I make usable subdirectories for my fonts?
-DeeBye
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - Xiuhcoatl - 08-14-2003
Hi,
Couldn't you sort all your fonts by date and delete all those that are older than your WinXP installation date?
Xi
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - NiteFox - 08-14-2003
Though I am unfamiliar with XP OEM distributions, I am unfortunately familiar with OEMs of pretty much everything prior to 2000. Unfortunately (Or fortunately, if you have time to burn) chances are that all the fonts are stored in one of the *.cab files.
I seriously wouldn't go ahead with deleting every font on your system, even if you reserve some of the system fonts (Courier, Times, Arial, Tahoma, the list goes on). One font you sure as hell shouldn't get rid of is MARLETT.TTF (Uh, I think. My mind's a little fuzzy about the font name). Marlett is, unfortunately, the system font that displays things like the Minimise/Restore/Maximize/Close buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, and a whole lot of other controls. Delete marlett, and you can expect some screwy behaviour until you get it fixed, and it's not a simple matter of just hauling out an old copy and installing it back.
If you still have the pack, try to dissect it and see what fonts were installed on your system, and delete any font on the list. Be careful with what you nuke though...
In short, fonts aren't just cute little files that allow you to type in different typefaces. There are a couple that you should chew your right arm off to avoid screwing with.
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - Quark - 08-15-2003
If I remember from searching through Office XP and WinXP CDs, the fonts are in .cab files, but WinXP can view .cab files natively (like .zip). Nothing to it ;)
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - Bob - 08-15-2003
Quote:Also, assuming that I am able to revert my system to the default Windows XP fonts, is there any way that I can add more fonts WITHOUT adding them to the general /Fonts directory? I'd like to be able to sort my fonts a bit better than lumping them all into one directory. Can I make usable subdirectories for my fonts?
Assuming that XP's registry works in the same way as that of Win9x you can put your fonts anywhere, but unless they are in windows/fonts it has to store the entire path, not just the name. Since the registry key size is limited, having longer paths means that you can't have so many fonts on your system (Nb, never run out of space for fonts, if the registry gets full up, you'll suddenly discover that you have NO fonts whatsoever - it happened to me once, I had to hand in a geography project all printed in system, and I had p's instead of X's in the top right corners of windows)
emphasis: assuming that xp works the same as 9x, you can put them whereve you want, so long as you don't mind having many less.
of course, this could be complete gibberish if xp and 9x are radically different, but there maybe someone out there who wanted to ask the same questions about 9x :P
-Bob
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - Walkiry - 08-15-2003
See, this is why you should have turned the System Restore option on and simply clicked to store your XP partition state at the moment of installing those fonts: you could just roll back with a couple of well-placed keystrokes ;). Remember this for next time.
Just out of curiosity, what happens if you sort the fonts in the directory by date?
I could quickly slap together a perl script for you that will compare my fonts directory (the default XP ones I belive) with yours and remove the extra ones if you want, should take some 5 minutes at most.
Or... I could just zip the fonts in my directory and send them to you, so that you just delete all the fonts in your directory and add mine :lol:
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - DeeBye - 08-17-2003
I tried sorting them by date, and it seemed to help a bit. I was able to distinguish most of the default fonts. They weren't all one date, but it was close enough.
I also found Microsoft's list of default XP fonts. I don't know why my initial Google searches failed to pick this page up. This was a very valuable resource for me.
While deleting the offending fonts, I also found out something even more helpfull. All of the Windows XP default True Type fonts use a different icon. Instead of the "TT" used by 3rd party fonts, they had an "O". As soon as I noticed this, it was a breeze.
Comparing my list of fonts to the above referenced Microsoft list, it seems that I am missing a few. Could these perhaps be only available with XP Pro? For example, the only ones I have beginning with the letter "A" are the Arial series of fonts. According to Microsoft's list I am missing about a dozen "A" fonts. Some of these are foreign language fonts which I have neglected to install via Windows Update, but some of them aren't.
Anyways, I'd like to thank you again for your input.
-DeeBye
How do I easily uninstall fonts? - Walkiry - 08-18-2003
DeeBye,Aug 17 2003, 04:29 AM Wrote:Comparing my list of fonts to the above referenced Microsoft list, it seems that I am missing a few. Could these perhaps be only available with XP Pro? For example, the only ones I have beginning with the letter "A" are the Arial series of fonts. According to Microsoft's list I am missing about a dozen "A" fonts. Some of these are foreign language fonts which I have neglected to install via Windows Update, but some of them aren't.Hmmm, I'll check it out for you when I get home since I've got XP Pro with all updates I could find in Windows Update :D I'd check it now but the Remote Desktop seems not to be working (my home network crapped itself last night, I still don't know why).