How to disable font smoothing / anti-aliasing in Windows 10

Question

In Windows 10 by default all text is rendered with so-called font smoothing or anti-aliasing. This is done in an effort to conceal the pixellation or jagged saw-tooth lines that appear because computer displays cannot draw diagonal or curved lines perfectly smoothly due to the visible size of the pixels. Unfortunately the result is to make the text look slightly blurred, with lower contrast, and such text is harder for our eyes to focus on which can lead to eye-strain. For me the problem is extreme, just a few minutes of reading anti-aliased text makes my eyes hurt. So, how do we turn it off?

Answer 1

NOTE: The information below only applies to Windows 10. I don’t know what will happen if you try to run the registry scripts below on a different version of Windows.

Step One

Turn off what Windows calls font smoothing.

There are two methods:

1. Type Win+R keys to open the run dialog and type SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe into the text box and hit enter. In the window that opens click in the box next to ‘smooth edges of screen fonts’ to remove the check mark. You can also find this setting in conrol panel→system and security→system→advanced system settings→performance→settings.

2. Use a registry script, as described below.

Step one disables aa in most browsers, some parts of windows, including most of file explorer, most dialogs and many third party apps.

Step Two

Unfortunately, a different type of font smoothing called cleartype will still be applied in control panel, the task bar and task manager and some parts of the file explorer. Cleartype cannot be turned off in those places but it is possible to force Windows to not use it by fooling it into using what’s called a bitmap font. This is an older font technology to which font smoothing / aa does not get applied. You can’t simply choose to use one of these fonts because Windows won’t let you. Instead you have to go into the Windows Registry (a database of Windows configuration settings) and delete some information so that Windows can’t find its preferred Segoi UI font and then change another registry key to tell it to use your bitmap font instead. You can do this manually but it’s much safer and easier to use a registry script, which can also do Step One as well so the whole process can be completed with a few clicks of your mouse.

The bitmap font I use is the Korean Dotum font (no you don’t need to read Korean). On my display it looks very nice: clean, crisp and sharp with well-defined characters. The only slight quirk I’ve come across is that in some places the separator in file paths gets replaced with a strange w with a line through it. It doesn’t bother me, rather that than Windows’ hideous, blurry, eyestrain inducing fonts. If you want an alternative you can try the MS Sans Serif font instead. In the script below just replace the word “Dotum” with “MS Sans Serif”.

This is the registry script I use:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothing"="0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Black (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Historic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Light Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semibold Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semilight (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semilight Italic (TrueType)"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"Segoe UI"="Dotum"

Line three of this script does the same as Step One above, the other lines accomplish Step Two by setting to empty strings the addresses for Windows default Segoi UI font and then telling Windows to use the Dotum font instead.

Before using this script you need to install the Dotum font:

In Windows, navigate to settings→apps→apps & features→optional features→korean supplemental fonts and click install. It will take a minute or two for windows to download and install the fonts.

Then create a blank file in Windows Notepad and copy and paste into it the script above. Give it a suitable name and save it with a .reg file extension. Make sure you copy it exactly as is, including the first line detailing the Windows Registry Editor Version.

WARNING: before running this script you should be aware that changing windows registry keys should not be undertaken lightly. The registry contains essential configuration settings that control how Windows works. Deleting or changing the wrong keys can mess up your Windows installation so proceed with caution. Before running the file, create a restore point, back up your files and create a system image so you can restore your computer if you need to. It’s unlikely you will need to, I’ve used this file many times on different computers with no problems, but it’s best to be on the safe side.

Once your system is backed up just double click the script file to run it. Click through the warning dialogs, restart windows and you’re done.

If you ever want to reverse the changes you can do so by using this registry script in the same way:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothing"="2"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black (TrueType)"="seguibl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)"="seguibli.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuiz.ttf"
"Segoe UI Historic (TrueType)"="seguihis.ttf"
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuii.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"="segoeuil.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light Italic (TrueType)"="seguili.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"="seguisb.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold Italic (TrueType)"="seguisbi.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight (TrueType)"="segoeuisl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight Italic (TrueType)"="seguisli.ttf"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"Segoe UI"=""

Unfortunately the technique described here doesn’t disable aa everywhere. In all of the new parts that arrived with Windows 10 like the start menu, everything accessible from the system tray at the right hand end of the task bar and many newer third party apps, aa continues to be applied. I have yet to find a way to disable it in those places. If anyone else knows how, please post an answer below.

Answer 2

How to disable font smoothing / anti-aliasing in Windows 10?

1. Press Win+R keys to open Run, type SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe into Run, and click/tap on OK to directly open to the Visual Effects tab in Performance Options

2. Uncheck (disable) Smooth edges of screen fonts and click/tap on OK.

Source Enable or Disable Font Smoothing in Windows | Tutorials