Windows 7 Windows 7 64-bit - Fonts Not Shown

Kaso

Well-Known Member
I received my laptop yesterday - Core i5, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I proceeded to install some apps from Microsoft and Adobe. Installation went fine and the apps started without problems. As soon as I saw the long list of fonts in Word, I wanted to remove as many of them as I possibly could.

Brought up Fonts panel. Only 10 fonts - 10 ancient, bitmap fonts. What!? I saw and selected many fonts in Microsoft and Adobe apps. The fonts are indeed there, but they are simply not shown - no Segoe, no Cambria, no Corbel, no Constantia, not even Arial and Times New Roman, nothing.

I got nervous and decided to restore Windows all the way back to the starting point. No luck. Same problem.

Today, I created the recovery DVDs from the factory partition. Rebooted from the DVDs to re-image C drive. Set up Windows and created my account. Windows 7 came up fresh. I went straight to the Fonts panel to check. Horror - the same 10 bitmap fonts, and nothing else.

What is going on? The factory-installed Windows 7 has problems showing fonts? What should I do now?

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi,

I don't quite see, did you actually delete a bunch of fonts from C:\Windows\Fonts? (System restore won't do if you have deleted the files.)

To try to restore them, you can cmd -> sfc /scannow (with your 7 install dvd in the drive), and then Fonts -> Install -> navigate to C:\Windows\Fonts.
 
When you installed Photoshop and Office, did they show a huge list of fonts? (Oops, Word did!).

What language are you using? I ask because 7 "hides" fonts non specific to the language you are using. Third party software however, (generally) do not.

Have you got "show hidden files and folders " enabled?

I do think restoring to scratch was a bit drastic, but I do understand your panic!!
 
I did not (in fact, I was never able to) delete any fonts because I never saw them - none, except the 10 bitmap fonts, were shown to me by the Fonts Panel.

As I said, I finally did a "re-image" of the factory-installed Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, virgin, no apps (only my admin user account, of course).

I did restore to the very first point. Then I did "re-image" from the factory partition. Brand new Windows installation. Then, why the problem?
 
I download a trial copy of MainType in order to peek into the Fonts folder. Sure enough, all the "beloved" Vista/7 fonts are there! But Fonts Panel refuses to show them.

Two weeks ago, I helped a friend with his new laptop and went specifically into Fonts Panel to remove the Arabic (sorry, no offense) fonts and a bunch of other fonts. This should be routine, since my days of Windows 95. Why the problem now, on a fresh installation of a "modern" operating system? :(
 
The fonts should be all there, both in C:\Windows\Fonts as well as in Control Panel\Fonts. 'Show hidden files and folders' (folder options) will help if they are hidden, but shouldn't be so by default.
 
I have a script to remove "non Latin Fonts" which cuts Windows 7 essential fonts from over 250mb down to 50mb. In other words if you are using English-US you are carrying 200mb of font you will (more than likely) never use.

This also goes for English-UK/GB, but M$ has yet to recognise English-UK/GB as a language, never has, (probably) never will. (I'm in an ethnic minority!! Will I get Government grants? Am I the right colour? Oops!! sorry color? I apologise for my behaviour. Oops!! done it again, behavior!!).

When you say "Fonts Panel", I'm assuming you are going through the Control Panel, have you tried looking directly into the fonts folder? (C:\Windows\Fonts, but you knew that, didn't you!).

Even though you can't see Segoe UI, it's obviously there as it's the 7 system default font.

Why you can't see all the fonts is, TBH, beyond me. My trouble has always been to hide all the extra fonts I'll never use.
 
Thanks for your replies! :) However, I find this statement dismissive: "The fonts should be all there, both in C:\Windows\Fonts as well as in Control Panel\Fonts." The word "should" is hard to take when I am the one suffering from the real (not imagined) problem, and I know what those things exactly are! :(

Yes, I know the fonts "are" there - I've been using Windows since Windows 3.1, if that means anything, LOL. It's just that I cannot "access" them the "official" way, i.e. Control Panel > Fonts. Actually, if one tries to open the Windows\Fonts folder, the same panel is opened anyway: same thing.

I am shown exactly 10 icons of ancient bitmap fonts, plus the summary "10 fonts" in English at the bottom of the panel. Changing to different views doesn't help.

The system and the apps seem to be running fine, otherwise. I can, at the end of the day, live with the extra fonts that I never use. It just "bugs" me that this sort of stupid "bug" appears in a brand new installation of Windows 7.

Any further enlightening insights and/or techniques will be most welcome! :)
 
"My trouble has always been to hide all the extra fonts I'll never use."

Well, Microsoft itself admits that not all applications currently "obey" the "font hidden" property. Office 2010 applications themselves show all the fonts regardless how carefully you choose to "hide" them via Control Panel > Fonts (explicit and proper enough?). I did the hiding on my friend's system - what a disappointment!

The truth is: Font Management on Windows 7 is no more modern than what used to be on Windows 95. :(
 
That's me fighting out of my weight allowance then!! I've only ever stripped down XP and a trainee at stripping down 7. I'm a mere Hammer Chewer compared with your experience. Over and Out

Mind, I can see all me fonts!!
 
Last edited:
TorrentG: Stripped down in what sense? Please elaborate.

The fonts are all there - Segoe UI, Segoe Script, Segoe Print, Segoe Condensed, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Arial, Times New Roman... are all there, and the applications DO display them in their font selection dialog boxes. I am able to create documents with these fonts, print them, create PDFs with them... At the minimum, the logon screen and the desktop (Windows Explorer) come up OK, with Segoe UI font.

My problem is that Control Panel > Fonts does NOT show the fonts. This restricts me (an "administrator") from "managing" the fonts - like deleting some of them, or for Goodness sake, at least viewing them.
 
Last edited:
Initially, I installed Word 2010 and tried it (i.e. creating some test documents with different fonts, even with the "enhanced" Comic Sans) before I wandered into Control Panel > Fonts and realized that there were only 10 bitmap fonts shown.

I could not explain the situation. I assumed my bad and decided to uninstall Word 2010 (and various other Office applications). Same Control Panel > Fonts problem.

Still assuming my bad, I restored Windows to the very first restore point. Same Control Panel > Fonts problem.

Always assuming my bad, I created the recovery DVDs from the factory partition and then "re-image" the C: drive from those DVDs. Back to square one: set up system, create user account, etc... As soon as I logged in and saw the desktop (with Segoe UI font properly used), I brought up Control Panel > Fonts. Same problem.

What I have right now is a "factory-fresh" Windows 7 Professional 64-bit laptop, without additional applications installed by me.

So, "Do you happen to have Microsoft Word on your machine?" No, not right now.
 
Do you recall when you selected the font in Word, whether there were only a few fonts listed here,,,,,,,,,,,,,from the drop-down list?

Do you have any programs installed that has this option, which shows a mini sample as to how the font looks.

Also, go to Start > Run, and type regedit.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts

Here is where all your fonts are located as in the C:\Windows32\Fonts directory, co-inciting with the Fonts folder.
 
Last edited:
Log into safe mode and see if you can do anything there. If you can, it's a simple permission issue with your account, in normal mode. (Safe is true admin.)

Also, make sure Windows Explorer is set to see all hidden and system files.

If you really want to see what's in the font folder, open an elevated command prompt. Type or copy/paste the following command then press enter:

chdir /d C:\Windows\Fonts

Then this command:

dir

Then this command to delete anything:

del fontname.ttf
 
Last edited:
@reghakr: Well, I saw, selected and used a number of different fonts in Word to create documents, to print them and to create PDFs from them. In PDF, the fonts are embedded properly. In other words, the font files are physically there in C:\Windows\Fonts folder; the problem is that their corresponding icons are not visually shown by Control Panel > Fonts.

Right now, I can open Notepad and Wordpad and see a whole bunch of fonts from their font-selection dialog boxes. Earlier, I used a program called MainType to view all the fonts (TTF, OTF) in the Fonts folder - I even clicked on individual characters to see large visual renditions of them.

Every application and its sister on my Windows 7 can show the fonts. But Control Panel > Panel, only this one "utility", persistently refuses to do so.


@TorrentG: Your method of manually deleting the individual font files is risky because each such deletion is not synchronized with a Registry update. :(
 
It's not risky at all. I wouldn't have suggested.

Use Ccleaner to clean the registry if you like, after. It won't make a difference either way.

------

Have you logged into safe mode to see all the fonts in Explorer? (Like I said, it's a simple permissions or viewing issue.)
 
Back
Top