Vista: Font rendering has recently gone to pot?

[mikeymikec]

I've seen this issue on three computers running Vista (32 or 64-bit), without any hardware in common that I can think of (the most relevant one being the graphics hardware).

A really basic test for this problem is to open Notepad and write some text, particularly with Times New Roman. It's as if font antialiasing has been borked by some recent-ish Windows update. Switching off font smoothing (in Windows performance options), makes it look worse. It affects apps right across the board, and the only workaround I've seen so far is in IE9 and to disable hardware acceleration. Google Chrome is affected as well and disabling HA in it makes no difference.

Explorer's font rendering appears to be unaffected. On one of the computers I tried updating the graphics driver, but it didn't help.

I'm doing a clean install of Vista on a laptop at the moment, currently it's at the SP1 stage and the font rendering looks fine. I'll post screenshots (before and after) if it starts exhibiting this problem.

I've also tried disabling desktop composition, no difference.

 

[Mike64]

It's as if font antialiasing has been borked by some recent-ish Windows update.

Did you first notice it before or after this week's updates? Had you previously installed last month's MS updates?

I'm using Vista x64 and something similar happened to me after last month's updates, though it was much more limited. It only affected text in the email folder windows of AOL's standalone software. I figured AOL had screwed something up and since I only use that program to read email on my desktop PC, I didn't bother trying to fix it. I never uninstalled the original update or installed the MS patch, but it stopped even before this week's updates. (In retrospect, I assume AOL must've done something to alter the "certain circumstances" mentioned by MS in the post linked below.)

Dunno if any of this will help you, but I just found this with Google, and noticed a few other possibly relevant Google hits with this search.

 

[mikeymikec]

All the machines I've seen the problem on are either customers' computers (so I see them once in a blue moon) or my parents' PC.

My wife is running Vista SP2 on a Sandy or Ivy Bridge build and it doesn't have the problem. My guess is that the update your links mentioned is the cause, and perhaps because my wife doesn't shut down / restart her PC often for updates, she missed out on an update that perhaps got withdrawn?

 

[Mike64]

My wife is running Vista SP2 on a Sandy or Ivy Bridge build and it doesn't have the problem. My guess is that the update your links mentioned is the cause, and perhaps because my wife doesn't shut down / restart her PC often for updates, she missed out on an update that perhaps got withdrawn?

If you're really curious, you could check the installed updates on your wife's machine to see if/when the relevant patch was installed. It may just be that whatever set of "circumstances" triggers the borking didn't affect her installation. As I mentioned, the only effect I saw was in the standalone AOL interface/email reader. It didn't happen in notepad, Firefox, MS Word, or any other program. If I weren't stuck in the 90s as far as personal email goes hmm, I wouldn't have noticed a problem at all.

 

[MiniDoom]

What the Font? There was an update released last month which jacked up some fonts. Microsoft has a hotfix that corrects the issue.

"Known issues with this security update

After you install security update 3013455, you may notice some decrease in text quality in certain scenarios. The problem occurs only on systems that are running one of the following operating systems:
Windows Vista SP2
Windows Server 2008 SP2
Windows Server 2003 SP2
To resolve this issue, install update 3037639. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
3037639 Fix for text quality degradation after security update 3013455 (MS15-010) is installed"
Here is the link for the hotfix.
http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3037639

 

[mikeymikec]

From what I've seen, it doesn't matter which font, they all don't look right. I tried a few fonts like Arial, TMR, lucida console.

Thanks for the info, I might try it on my parents' system.

 

[MiniDoom]

From what I've seen, it doesn't matter which font, they all don't look right. I tried a few fonts like Arial, TMR, lucida console.

Thanks for the info, I might try it on my parents' system.

I've deployed this hotfix to about 50 2003 servers, and it was only a few fonts effected. I have not looked at this hotfix in regards to client operating systems.

 

[Mushkins]

Could the Cleartype settings have been reset maybe? Are these laptops or desktops? Similar monitors/resolutions?

 

[mikeymikec]

Cleartype was already / still enabled, and I know what Vista would look like normally without Cleartype. I also tried the Cleartype Tuner tool but it made zero difference.

Laptops and desktops, different resolutions.

 

[ninaholic37]

I heard someone else complain about this recently in Vista as well.

edit: Here's the link. You might enjoy their 'elaborate' description.

 

[mikeymikec]

I heard someone else complain about this recently in Vista as well.

edit: Here's the link. You might enjoy their 'elaborate' description.

<shakes head>

I remember it was a Thursday because I always have pancakes on Thursdays...

 

[mikeymikec]

This laptop has received all the updates (though I haven't bothered with the optional .net 4.5.2) without any problems, so I wonder if they re-issued an update or superseded it with another one.

I'll try uninstalling the potential problematic update from my parents' PC to see if it rectifies the problem.

 

[mikeymikec]

I removed KB3013455 from one of my parents' PCs (both running Vista) and it fixed the font rendering issue. I did a screenshot before and after, unfortunately I left them on their PC.

Someone earlier asked "desktop or laptop", actually it turns out that out of the three PCs, I can't remember what the first was, the one that caused me to post this the other day was a later, the desktop that I thought had the issue didn't, and my parents' other PC, a laptop had the problem.

While I would be surprised if the computer's form factor had anything to do with it (how many Windows updates are specifically aimed at laptops? If I had to bet, none), it seems likely (possibly just coincidence) that all three scenarios I encountered were laptops.

 

[MiniDoom]

I removed KB3013455 from one of my parents' PCs (both running Vista) and it fixed the font rendering issue. I did a screenshot before and after, unfortunately I left them on their PC.

Someone earlier asked "desktop or laptop", actually it turns out that out of the three PCs, I can't remember what the first was, the one that caused me to post this the other day was a later, the desktop that I thought had the issue didn't, and my parents' other PC, a laptop had the problem.

While I would be surprised if the computer's form factor had anything to do with it (how many Windows updates are specifically aimed at laptops? If I had to bet, none), it seems likely (possibly just coincidence) that all three scenarios I encountered were laptops.

why not install the hotfix instead of uninstall the patch?

 

[mikeymikec]

why not install the hotfix instead of uninstall the patch?

I'm not sure why I went for one and not the other. I was more curious about finding out if the patch caused the problem in the first place, so from that perspective I suppose that reversing a change is better than trying to patch over a bad patch with another patch.

 

[MiniDoom]

I'm not sure why I went for one and not the other. I was more curious about finding out if the patch caused the problem in the first place, so from that perspective I suppose that reversing a change is better than trying to patch over a bad patch with another patch.

personally, I would rather install a patch that corrects critical security vulnerabilities while breaking some fonts for which a hotfix update resolves, instead of not breaking the fonts and letting the security vulnerability continue unmitigated.

 

[mikeymikec]

personally, I would rather install a patch that corrects critical security vulnerabilities while breaking some fonts for which a hotfix update resolves, instead of not breaking the fonts and letting the security vulnerability continue unmitigated.

That's my point of view usually too. As I said, I don't know why I didn't make the conscious decision of one over the other.