Consolidation of fonts
diggerodell
start-up time as well as overall operating speed. So I decided to trim the
number of fonts made available in windows. Problem: fonts are stored in
not one but two separate folders: Windows/Fonts and Windows/System
Which one is the legitimate folder for fonts? Or do I need both?
Thanks. digger
Jordon
You must have a different flavor of Windows than I
do. I've got a bunch of XP Pro and 2k boxes and none
of them have any fonts in the Windows/System folder.
--
Jordon
VanguardLH
You'll probably find the ones in %windir%\system are duplicates of ones
in %windir%\fonts. The ones in %windir%\fonts are the ones used. The
ones in %windir%\system are the system fonts specified in the old
win.ini file that still exists for backward compatibility with really
old 16-bit applications that expect the presence of win.ini to save
their configuration parameters and get some system config data.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/80153
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIN.INI
The only .ttf files that I find in my %windir%\system folder are for
Lucida Sans (normal & italic) and Lucida Sans Demibold (normal &
italic). The 4 files occupy all of 212KB of disk space, hardly anything
to be concerned about even if you are running low on disk space (since
if you are that short then space freed up by these few files isn't going
to help your situation). It's likely that these same font files are in
your %windir%\fonts folder where Windows and apps find them.
chuckcar
news:he78ct$mnm$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
How *exactly* are you planning on removing these fonts? removing *any*
windows system file - of which font files are absolutely included - can
cause the system to stop working if not done exactly right. In particular
any fonts that would be in use at the time springs immediately to mind.
Worrying about the number of fonts (unless it's in the 1,000's) is
probably a red herring anyways. Is your system slow when you boot to safe
mode or not?
--
(setq (chuck nil) car(chuck) )
diggerodell
"chuckcar" <ch...@nil.car> wrote in message
news:Xns9CC9C8B0C4...@127.0.0.1...
System boots into safe mode comparatively fast (as compared with last year's
Dell using XP). The combined number of font files is definitely less than
600. But some of those 600 are duplicates and some are fonts that I would
NEVER use. So why not replace the those with fonts that I really like?
However, if by doing so I would put myself in harms way, then of course I
would simply add the extra fonts.
Thanks!!! digger
diggerodell
"VanguardLH" <V...@nguard.LH> wrote in message
news:he7b5f$cn3$1...@news.albasani.net...
My Windows/system directory contains 335 fonts (335 mb). And, as you point
out, most of them also appear in the windows/fonts directory.
Hypothetically, could I safely eliminate only the duplicate fonts (from the
windows/system directory)? Or would that jepordize the old 16-bit
applications that are still hanging around?
diggerodell
"diggerodell" <digge...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:he7gl7$q1t$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
CORRECTION: make that 635 fonts in the windows/system directory!!
thanatoid
> Common wisdom would dictate that too many fonts will
There are some - very few, mostly older - apps that install
fonts to the system directory.
All fonts Windows and other MS programs install are in the
windows/fonts directory, and so are most (but not all - some get
installed in program directories - fonts installed by other
programs.,
I have solved the ridiculous font problem ages ago by doing a
very simple thing:
I moved ALL except the basic Windows install fonts (about 50
file for 98SE) into a directory called "fonts" on another
partition - but it could just be another directory n C if C is
all you have. Then you get a great free program here:
http://www.moonsoftware.com/getfile.asp?fxfull
or another one like it )there are quite a few font management
utilities around), and just load the fonts you need when needed.
LOAD, not INSTALL, that's the cool thing about this program.
Fonts can eat a lot of memory.
--
There are only two classifications of disk drives: Broken drives
and those that will break later.
- Chuck Armstrong
chuckcar
news:he7g08$lu8$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
>
> "chuckcar" <ch...@nil.car> wrote in message
> news:Xns9CC9C8B0C4...@127.0.0.1...
>> "diggerodell" <digge...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> news:he78ct$mnm$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
>>
>>> Common wisdom would dictate that too many fonts will adversely affect
>>> start-up time as well as overall operating speed. So I decided to
>>> trim the number of fonts made available in windows. Problem: fonts
>>> are stored in not one but two separate folders: Windows/Fonts and
>>> Windows/System
>>>
>>> Which one is the legitimate folder for fonts? Or do I need both?
>>>
>>> Thanks. digger
>>>
>> How *exactly* are you planning on removing these fonts? removing *any*
>> windows system file - of which font files are absolutely included - can
>> cause the system to stop working if not done exactly right. In
>> particular any fonts that would be in use at the time springs
>> immediately to mind.
>>
>> Worrying about the number of fonts (unless it's in the 1,000's) is
>> probably a red herring anyways. Is your system slow when you boot to
>> safe mode or not?
>>
> System boots into safe mode comparatively fast (as compared with last
> year's Dell using XP). The combined number of font files is definitely
> less than 600. But some of those 600 are duplicates and some are fonts
> that I would NEVER use. So why not replace the those with fonts that I
> really like?
>
> However, if by doing so I would put myself in harms way, then of course
> I would simply add the extra fonts.
>
Don't worry about fonts. I don't believe that's been a problem (unless you
have something silly like 56 point fonts) since windows 98. Try disabling
your startup with msconfig as those don't run in safe mode.
VanguardLH
> diggerodell wrote ...
>>
>> VanguardLH wrote ...
>>>
>>> diggerodell wrote:
>>>
>>>> Common wisdom would dictate that too many fonts will adversely
>>>> affect start-up time as well as overall operating speed. So I
>>>> decided to trim the number of fonts made available in windows.
>>>> Problem: fonts are stored in not one but two separate folders:
>>>> Windows/Fonts and Windows/System
>>>> Which one is the legitimate folder for fonts? Or do I need both?
>>>
>>> You'll probably find the ones in %windir%\system are duplicates of
>>> ones in %windir%\fonts. The ones in %windir%\fonts are the ones
>>> used. The ones in %windir%\system are the system fonts specified
>>> in the old win.ini file that still exists for backward
>>> compatibility with really old 16-bit applications that expect the
>>> presence of win.ini to save their configuration parameters and get
>>> some system config data.
>>>
>>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/80153
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIN.INI
>>>
>>> The only .ttf files that I find in my %windir%\system folder are for
>>> Lucida Sans (normal & italic) and Lucida Sans Demibold (normal &
>>> italic). The 4 files occupy all of 212KB of disk space, hardly
>>> anything to be concerned about even if you are running low on disk
>>> space (since if you are that short then space freed up by these few
>>> files isn't going to help your situation). It's likely that these
>>> same font files are in your %windir%\fonts folder where Windows and
>>> apps find them.
>>
>> My Windows/system directory contains 335 fonts (335 mb). And, as you
>> point out, most of them also appear in the windows/fonts directory.
>> Hypothetically, could I safely eliminate only the duplicate fonts
>> (from the windows/system directory)? Or would that jepordize the
>> old 16-bit applications that are still hanging around?
>
> CORRECTION: make that 635 fonts in the windows/system directory!!
Is that 635 *fonts*? Or 635 font *files*? Several font files can
constitute a font family (to include normal, bold, italic, etc). Any
program that dumped font files into the %windir%\system folder dumped
them in the wrong spot (or they're using them as backups). I've seen
users buy or obtain font packs and then unzip them there only to
"install" them which moved a copy into the %windir%\fonts folder.
Did you even look inside the win.ini file to see if there was even a
[System] section within it (that might specify a system font path)? My
7-year old host doesn't have a [System] section because I have no
really, REALLY, R-E-A-L-L-Y old app that relies on the win.ini file. It
probably has a [Fonts] section but I bet it's blank like mine.
Regarding your original question, the fonts in the system folder are not
going to affect your Windows startup time because Windows will not be
loading those fonts into memory, just the fonts in the fonts folder.
Was this your host that only you use? If so, why did you dump so many
fonts in the wrong place? If someone else is using that same host or
you bought it used, someone dumped the fonts in the wrong place (but
used computers should always start with a format and fresh install of
the OS, anyway). Personally I suspect that you don't have any really
old apps that need to use win.ini or find fonts under the system folder.
You could just zip them all up and move them elsewhere (or just leave
the .zip file in the system folder for now), delete the font files
(since they're in the .zip file), and see if anything ever bitches about
not finding fonts.
If you wanted to doublecheck that deleting/moving/hiding the font files
in the system folder are causing problems or not during Windows startup
(which loads the fonts into memory to speed up applications that may use
them and may use lots of different fonts within the same document), you
could add the /bootlog parameter in your boot.ini file. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721
The easy way to do this is to run msconfig.exe, go to the boot.ini tab,
and enable the /Bootlog option. Reboot your host and then run
"notepad.exe %systemroot%\ntbtlog.txt". Then check if Windows was
bitching about not finding some font files.
Although many articles will tell you to reduce fonts to speed up
(shorten) the Windows startup time, you would need somewhere over 1000
fonts to make a dent in your boot time. Say it takes a couple of
seconds on an old slow hard disk to load 120MB of font files. Is
Windows performing all its actions in series? No, the fonts are getting
loaded while Windows is doing something else for its boot. Most such
suggestions to reduce font count don't even mention just how much time
you will save for your Windows boot because they don't know. They're
just regurgitating information that someone else wrote. As I recall,
you won't see a *measurable* impact (but what you can benchmark is not
what you will personally notice) until you get around 800 fonts (or
maybe it was around 600; it's been a long time since I researched this
last time).
Typically I go through my fonts using a viewer utility to compare them.
I find dozens of them that are so similar that even a whole packed page
of text using one or the other font doesn't impact a noticeable
difference to a human when viewing them; i.e., you won't see any
difference. I use a page full of text where the repeated paragraph uses
a different but similar font. If I can't see a difference or it is so
little that it is pointless, all but one of those fonts are gone. So
you probably have a ton of worthless fonts that are identical or so
nearly identical that you don't need but one of them. I'm something of
a clean freak and like to keep my fonts below 300 (but, hell, I don't
even use anywhere that many). In the decades of using PCs, I've
probably used less than 2 dozen fonts in all the documents that I've
ever written.
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> Don't worry about fonts. I don't believe that's been a problem (unless
> you have something silly like 56 point fonts) since windows 98.
<LOL!!>
> Try disabling your startup with msconfig as those don't run in safe
> mode.
Sure, disable the computer. Excellent advice.
--
-bts
-Friends don't let friends drive Windows
Kadaitcha Man
> Stock chucktard advice.
What else do you ever post?
diggerodell
"VanguardLH" <V...@nguard.LH> wrote in message
Thanks a million, VanguardLH. A great help! There are 635 *folders* in the
win/system dir. -- maybe a legacy of msWorks 2000. So I will definitely zip
and transfer them to either a CD or an aux harddrive just in case some
program (like Works) balks. I can't imagine needing more than 2 or 3 dozen
and I am getting a tad compulsive about excess baggage.
digger
VanguardLH
> Thanks a million, VanguardLH. A great help! There are 635 *folders* in the
> win/system dir. -- maybe a legacy of msWorks 2000. So I will definitely zip
> and transfer them to either a CD or an aux harddrive just in case some
> program (like Works) balks. I can't imagine needing more than 2 or 3 dozen
> and I am getting a tad compulsive about excess baggage.
>
> digger
I just spent an evening reducing mine. I had font packages from
Microsoft (TrueType package from Microsoft when it was free), HP fonts
package (also free but forget where I got it after over a decade), and
Swfte font package (that I bought over a decade ago). I then used AMP
FontViewer (free) to simply walk through the list of fonts and get a
view of each one. Any that didn't have both uppercase and *lowercase*
characters (other than symbol or special fonts) got deleted unless they
might have a use. Those that were "noisy" by splattering dots, curlies,
or other extraneous garbage got deleted. Those that I could read unless
the font size was huge got deleted (no point in keeping unreadable
fonts, like some script font with such a severe lean that even tilting
your head won't help to read it). I then used FontViewer to group
similar fonts to Times New Roman and then again to Arial. This utility
doesn't delete fonts well plus I don't think it really shows an accurate
display. So I duplicated a paragraph in a Word doc and applied a
similar font to each paragraph. Those that stood out as different got
erased from the document (but their font was kept) to reduce it down to
those fonts that really look extremely alike. When I got all down, my
635 fonts (over 900 files) got reduced to 300 fonts (on the nose).
AMP FontViewer is free. So is PC Magazine's FontViewer but it costs to
access their download database (software is free, access is not). I got
it many years ago before Ziff Davis decided to charge for access.
I wasn't concerned about Windows boot time or the memory consumed by
loading the fonts. I found it a nuisance having to scroll through such
a huge list of fonts when I wanted to pick one inside an application.
While I'm not going to fork out the money for Office 2007, it's Word
does have the nice feature of "live preview" so I can walk through
candidate fonts and see the immediate effect of what that font would
look like for the selected text in my document (rather than apply the
font, find I don't like it or want to try another one to compare, and
repeat the process until I get one that I like).
Ace_racer
Dude, fonts would not do much harm.
Go to start-run-(type) MSconfig
Selectively disable unwanted services and start up applications.