Windows 7 Windows 7 64-bit - Fonts Not Shown

[Kaso]

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.

 

[TorrentG]

Especially if you are using a non-English language, I think you should click on "Font settings" in the upper left of the font folder, in Windows Explorer.

There's a setting for Show and hide fonts (These settings might not apply to all of your programs)

Uncheck the box to hide fonts based on language settings. Hit ok.

 

[Kaso]

I am using a US English version of Windows 7 on a laptop with US English keyboard.

This "Hide Fonts" feature does not work, i.e. it is just more "candy". No applications, including Office 2010, currently seem to care about this "advanced" feature: they show ALL the fonts, "hidden" or not.

I could follow your advice to delete certain fonts. Now I must know which (raw) file names correspond to which (fancy) font names! And the only "utility" that can nicely show me the names and looks of the fonts is... guess what, Control Panel > Fonts. Sigh!

My real problem is Control Panel > Fonts, why is it behaving stupidly as it is, and how to fix it. As I said, I could eventually teach myself to live with a bunch of useless fonts.

 

[TorrentG]

I keep asking if you booted to safe mode to see if there is any difference there.

Your answer depends on the direction of further troubleshooting, as we can then know if it is a permissions, account or Windows Explorer setting problem.

 

[Kaso]

TorrentG: "Have you logged into safe mode to see all the fonts in Explorer?" Yes. They are all there (but I already know this by other means).

My problem is not "missing fonts" or "corrupted fonts". My problem is Control Panel > Fonts not showing the fonts as it normally should - like on my other Windows 7 systems, like on any systems I can lay a hand on at work.

 

[reghakr]

Do toy happen to have an extraordinary number of fonts installed.............Say over 500?

 

[Kaso]

Look, my Windows 7 system is back to the factory-installed state. Virgin. Fresh.

I did not install any applications. I did not directly/indirectly add/delete any fonts.

No, I do not happen to have more than 500 fonts. In fact, I don't know exactly how many fonts there are in a brand-new Windows 7 system.

 

[Kaso]

People have been reporting the problem on various forums (one person even posted a screenshot that shows Control Panel > Fonts just like in my case, 10 fonts), but no one seems to understand the problem or have a fix.

The screenshot: Link Removed due to 404 Error

Various "experts" on the Microsoft social forum have suggested "Restore Default Font Settings", but this is fundamentally not a user problem. You may observe the problem on a brand new system, where the user has not done anything but creating their account and seeing the desktop for the first time. How can Windows Explorer create its text labels (like "Recycle Bin") so nicely in Segoe UI font, while Control Panel > Fonts does not show at least this one font?

Windows 7 bug? I seriously think so.

 

[thedailycommute]

It's "nice" to know I'm not alone with this problem!

My (work) computer was upgraded (3 days ago!) from Vista Enterprise (64bit) to Windows 7 Enterprise (64bit). The upgrade itself went smoothly enough, but I just realised (a few minutes ago) that I am no longer able to view fonts in the fonts folder (via Explorer/Control Panel). My view is exactly the same as the screenshot in the previous post.

I have confirmed that the fonts DO exist, and the files can be seen from a CMD prompt, plus the fonts appear in Word etc., but not in the control panel. I also checked with several colleagues, all with identical machines to mine (installed software varies slightly), all of which were upgraded at the same time, and none of them have this problem.

Another curiosity - using the Everything Search tool (<plug>Everything Search Engine (www. voidtools.com) - probably the *fastest* file finder you'll ever use!</plug>) I can also see the files, but I am unable to obtain file properties or anything else. It's as if the files don't exist!

I am beginning to suspect a permissions problem (even though I am an administrator on my machine, and have UAC completely disabled (but that's another story!)) but the Fonts folder doesn't display the usual "Security" tab on the properties dialog. In fact the only tabs that appear are "General" and "Previous Versions" (of which there are none).

The only other common factor I see with this problem is that it seems to (mainly?) affect 64bit versions of Windows 7. Curious is the fact it affects upgrades (like mine) and clean installations (from other posts). The problem has been widely reported for many months too, without any direct acknowledgement on the part of Microsoft that this is a bug in Windows 7.

Oh well, if I could go back to Vista, I would, in an instant. But I guess I'll just have to wait for SP1 (or 2, or ...) and hope the problem is finally acknowledged (and fixed!)

 

[Mike]

You can restore all file permissions to default in Windows 7 using an elevated command prompt. Before taking major system wide actions, you should back up your stuff. This is clear to see at this point for most people after seeing so much go wrong so quickly.

Follow these steps to restore Windows 7 default file permissions:

Go to Start -> Search -> cmd.exe
Right-click on "cmd.exe" and "Run as Administrator"
In the console run: secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose
Restart when the process is completed.

Before taking this action, I suggest you check system file integrity. Again, run cmd.exe as elevated and run both:

chkdsk /r /f
sfc /scannow

Many system related issues are related to file system corruption due to hard disk errors. In an environment of approximately 200 computers, nearly every workstation-level failure for computers over 3 years old was related to system file corruption and hard disk failure. This rate had declined significantly when the machines were found to be running SATA hard drives instead of IDE ones. After seeing the corruption problem so many times, I have moved completely to solid state hard drives. I would rather pay a premium for solid state, non-volatile, high performance drives that have no moving parts than waste a single drive in a RAID-1, RAID-5, or RAID-10.

I am confident your problem has something to do with permissions, file system integrity, or a combination of both. It is also remotely possible that 3rd party software and drivers installed under Vista created an inconsistent upgrade path to Windows 7, but seeing as how the kernels are both extraordinarily similar for this type of operating system upgrade I would be very surprised.

 

[thedailycommute]

[Update]

Ok, did a bit more digging and found a little more info (no solution yet but I'm working on it

After opening a CMD prompt in the Fonts folder, I used the ICACLS command to list the ACLs for all fonts (ICACLS *.ttf > C:\TEMP\FONTACLS.TXT if you want to try this at home

Imagine my surprise when I saw that the fonts I can see (plus a few others which appear, from their names, to be Arabic and Indian fonts, and they don't appear in the fonts explorer) all include:

NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller: (F)

e.g. Times New Roman:

times.ttf NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller: (F)
BUILTIN\Administrators: (RX)
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM: (RX)
BUILTIN\Users: (RX)


The rest of the 300 or so fonts (that don't appear any more) contain ACLs similar to these (for the Wingdings fonts):
wingding.ttf BUILTIN\Administrators: (F)
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM: (F)
BUILTIN\Users: (RX)
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Administrators: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Users: (I)(RX)

WINGDNG2.TTF NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Administrators: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Users: (I)(RX)

WINGDNG3.TTF NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Administrators: (I)(F)
BUILTIN\Users: (I)(RX)

The problem now is to figure out what's missing, and how to correct it :-|

 

[Mike]

Have you considered simply navigating to c:\windows\fonts and removing the ones that do not appear? You can Select All and simply copy them to a folder on the Desktop and from within this folder click on "Install". This may be one way to quickly regain control of your fonts.

 

[thedailycommute]

Many thanks for the suggestions but...

chkdsk - no problems found.
sfc - no problemas found.

I also ran ICACLS on a couple of colleagues machines and discovered (to my disgust that the ACLS are identical on all of our machines. So much for that idea...

Guess I could try resetting default permissions etc. but only after I've created a backup

 

[Mike]

Rebuild Font Cache

The Windows operating system has a font cache file that is located here: C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT

Delete this file, and restart your system.

 

[thedailycommute]

Almost none of the fonts appear in Windows Explorer (or the Fonts control panel), just:

Courier Regular
Fixedsys Regular
Modern Regular
MS Sans Serif Regular
MS Serif Regular
Roman Regular
Script Regular
Small Fonts Regular
System Bold
Terminal

In fact, now I think about it, the only fonts that are showing up in explorer are the BITMAP fonts (extension .FON). None of my truetype (.TTF) or opentype (.OTF) show up.

Rather than moving the fonts out I decided to try another approach - installing a couple of new fonts (.TTF and .OTF formats). After installation the fonts appear in Word etc. without problem. But do NOT show up in explorer/control panel...

Digging around the 'net again, I found a couple of references to similar problems with XP. However, in at least one case the problem was a missing Font key in the registry (and I already checked mine

Oh well... back to the drawing board!

 

[thedailycommute]

Rebuild Font Cache

The Windows operating system has a font cache file that is located here: C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT

Delete this file, and restart your system.

I was really hoping that would fix it but ... no joy :-( Still no TTF or OTF fonts appear in the Fonts control panel/Explorer windows.

 

[w7pro]

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

Hi Kaso,

The fonts maybe hidden. Go to Control Panel\Fonts, click on Font Settings, and then Restore Default Font Settings. If the fonts are hidden, this should do the trick.

Further, if you'd like to install (and uninstall) fonts, please refer to the steps found at this page: Install or uninstall fonts

Hope this helps

Ahmad AA
Windows 7 Professional Outreach Team

 

[reghakr]

Did you check this registry key:

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

Are there more than the standard fonts you said display properly?

 

[Elmer]

Well. Its just happened to me!
I installed my Illy CS4 on Sunday and forgot to untick the Adobe extra fonts. My font folder jumped from my usual 209 installed to over 400.
Damn, I thought (well it was a bit stronger than that actually!!), I'll just uninstall them. I highlighted the first fifteen or so due for the axe, right-clicked and then confirmed my delete...
And promptly ended up with only 10 (viewable) font sets left!!

Through MainType, Illy, PS and Office I could still see 390 plus sets, but in the fonts folder only ten sets were showing.

Luckily I'd done a backup on Friday (phew!!) with Macrium Reflect, so after an hour of patience I was back to normal. This time I remembered to untick Illy's extra fonts though when re-installing it!!

Before I did that though I did play with the various options thrown around the web. Not one of 'em made a difference.

I can now see how really frustrating this can be and would love to know what causes it.

BTW I'm always chopping and changing "non-essential" fonts around to suit what I'm doing. This is the first time this has ever happened. Mind Office 2010 has only been installed for about four weeks and that's the first time I've gone directly to the font folder to delete fonts in that time. Hmmmmm! :-<

 

[Squished]

This topic is a little old, but hopefully not dead. It was the only useful topic I have found so far googling for the issue.

My issue is nearly identical to the OP. All the Win 7 base fonts are there, and working within programs, however, they will not show up in the Font control panel when it is opened. I have found that selecting the font options, and clicking on "reset defaults" (I believe relating to showing only fonts for my location, I'm not at the machine in question.) will temporarily fix the issue. I can view the Font control panel just fine.... until after next reboot. Then they are all gone again.

I'll work my way through all the suggestions here, but was curious if the OP was still watching the thread and found a solution.

One other oddity in my case: When opening the font control panel, the progress bar (that increments across the path in the window header) slowly fills in, but even after reaching the end, nothing is displayed.

This is a recent setup. I haven't installed anything much beyond AnyDVD, Acronis and a few other utils. No Adobe products other than Flash, and no Office yet.

 

[Squished]

Well, that was too easy. Mike's suggestion to delete the fntcache.dat file did it in my case.

Thanks.