When You first set up Windows 7, in their infinite wisdom, Microsoft has installed every font/language under the sun (bar one, I'll come back to that later!!). This means that if you are using an English** language PC with the relative keyboards etc., approximately 70% of the fonts you have installed you will never be able to use.
Now this isn't a major problem with Seven, you'll never see them. But just you wait until you install any font based apps. like Office, anything Adobe etc.
They don't realise the fonts are "hidden" so you end up with a list of fonts to select from that, to be honest, is ferkin stoopid!! When you have to search for Arial, you just know things are going too far!
Seeing as a lot of these fonts have been deemed as "system" by Microsoft it can be a pain to remove them. But luckily for me (and maybe, just maybe, now you!) I took part in a thread at Link Removed - Invalid URL which gave me a link to Link Removed - Invalid URL site, and he's written this brilliant little script to clean up your fonts folder. You can get the script he wrote from either link but I'm posting my adaption of Martin's script as a English UK user and this works fine for me (Martin is using a German based PC so that might be one of the reasons for a difference).
So this script removes all the "non-essential if you are using English/Latin" fonts to a folder at the root of your C:\ so if you have any issues (doubtful, but I do know of one, read on) you can drop them back into your fonts folder. In other words, give it a week before you permanently delete.
Now, the one I know about. Meiryo (typo?) is a non-Latin font, but if you are going to install Office 2010 and this is missing, it complains slightly, so I've removed it from my version of the script and just manually uninstall the font later.
So. Now I've cleared all the useless fonts. Time I went power crazy!! What else could I remove?
Well all the Language Folders in System32 and SysWOW64 would be a good start. Done that!!
Then there's all the foreign language keyboard.dll's. On a roll baby!!
What about the useless (to me) Adobe foreign fonts? HIS-story man!! (calm down Elmer!!)
Err, foreign language boot files? Gone!!
In this link I'm providing is a folder called "LANGUAGE_CLEAN". Drop that in your C:\ root folder. Open a (preferred) Elevated command prompt window pointing to LANGUAGE_CLEAN and type in the name of the .bat file you want to use +[space]c, answer the simple yes/no question and let it run. Removed files will be dropped in the relevant folder inside the LANGUAGE_CLEAN folder so you can re-install anything if required. And if you're really trusting, I expect, nay, demand! at a minimum you will at least scan and/or read before using!, there's a .bat file called ALL which does, errrr, ALL!
NOTE!! If you intend to install Office 2010 then you need the Meiryo font. To this end it's not included in the above batch files. Once Office is installed however....
ENJOY!!
Elmer BeFuddled
**[rant]For English, read American. At least Adobe knows there is an International (Rest Of The World) English, knows what a colour is and responds with the correct behaviour!![/rant]
Now this isn't a major problem with Seven, you'll never see them. But just you wait until you install any font based apps. like Office, anything Adobe etc.
They don't realise the fonts are "hidden" so you end up with a list of fonts to select from that, to be honest, is ferkin stoopid!! When you have to search for Arial, you just know things are going too far!
Seeing as a lot of these fonts have been deemed as "system" by Microsoft it can be a pain to remove them. But luckily for me (and maybe, just maybe, now you!) I took part in a thread at Link Removed - Invalid URL which gave me a link to Link Removed - Invalid URL site, and he's written this brilliant little script to clean up your fonts folder. You can get the script he wrote from either link but I'm posting my adaption of Martin's script as a English UK user and this works fine for me (Martin is using a German based PC so that might be one of the reasons for a difference).
So this script removes all the "non-essential if you are using English/Latin" fonts to a folder at the root of your C:\ so if you have any issues (doubtful, but I do know of one, read on) you can drop them back into your fonts folder. In other words, give it a week before you permanently delete.
Now, the one I know about. Meiryo (typo?) is a non-Latin font, but if you are going to install Office 2010 and this is missing, it complains slightly, so I've removed it from my version of the script and just manually uninstall the font later.
So. Now I've cleared all the useless fonts. Time I went power crazy!! What else could I remove?
Well all the Language Folders in System32 and SysWOW64 would be a good start. Done that!!
Then there's all the foreign language keyboard.dll's. On a roll baby!!
What about the useless (to me) Adobe foreign fonts? HIS-story man!! (calm down Elmer!!)
Err, foreign language boot files? Gone!!
In this link I'm providing is a folder called "LANGUAGE_CLEAN". Drop that in your C:\ root folder. Open a (preferred) Elevated command prompt window pointing to LANGUAGE_CLEAN and type in the name of the .bat file you want to use +[space]c, answer the simple yes/no question and let it run. Removed files will be dropped in the relevant folder inside the LANGUAGE_CLEAN folder so you can re-install anything if required. And if you're really trusting, I expect, nay, demand! at a minimum you will at least scan and/or read before using!, there's a .bat file called ALL which does, errrr, ALL!
NOTE!! If you intend to install Office 2010 then you need the Meiryo font. To this end it's not included in the above batch files. Once Office is installed however....
ENJOY!!
Elmer BeFuddled
**[rant]For English, read American. At least Adobe knows there is an International (Rest Of The World) English, knows what a colour is and responds with the correct behaviour!![/rant]
Last edited:
