Warning - Windows Update for IE9 Fonts

[Roger H. Veteran]

I just installed some Windows Updates. One of them had to do with fonts rendering in IE9 and man it screwed em up a bit.

I'm guessing it's this one:

Text displayed in some core fonts appears blurred in Internet Explorer 9 on a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2

Text that is displayed in the following core fonts in Windows Internet Explorer 9 appears blurred, when you compare it to text in Windows Internet Explorer 8:

Arial (10-point and 11-point)

Verdana (9-point and 10-point)

Tahoma (11-point and 13-point)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545698

They weren't bad before but now they terrible, and i'm not one of those "font rendering" guys.

Here's a BEFORE picture:

Here's a AFTER picture:

[Xerax]

Doesn't look that bad.. Mind I'm on Windows8, and that has a much improved font rendering engine in the OS it seem's from 7->8 side-by-side checks.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

I installed the update earlier. The fonts look fine to me in IE 9.

Matter of taste I suppose.

[Yorak]

I think the fonts indeed look better.

[Roger H. Veteran]

OK look now - did as close as i could to before and after. You also gotta click the pictures to get the normal resolution (which isn't much bigger but at least the image is shown to scale).

Look at the first sentence then go back and forth between them.

Put it this way, i thought i had accidentally activated the zoom feature on IE9 where things can start to look tiny.

Someone tell me i'm not crazy. :wacko: LOL

Ninja edit :ninja:

Ok so apparently i'm not crazy? I went to Internet Options to go put it back into software rendering mode and this is what i get now:

[Aethec]

IE9 Before: http://i.imgur.com/fxFlv.png

IE9 After: http://i.imgur.com/1unRF.png

IE8 mode (GDI, not DirectWrite): http://i.imgur.com/6gswk.png

Not bad. (GeForce 8800 GTS)

[Roger H. Veteran]

Ok look at those images above, 2 seperate tabs. Look at the Os in "hour" or the "M" in some of the letters, keep your eyes focus on them then switch back and forth between tabs and see what I'm talking about.

And everyone who has it installed, does your Internet Options work?

(I'm using the Intel HD Graphics with 8.15.10.2361 drivers on Windows x64 if that makes a difference)

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Ok look at those images above, 2 seperate tabs. Look at the Os in "hour" or the "M" in some of the letters, keep your eyes focus on them then switch back and forth between tabs and see what I'm talking about.

And everyone who has it installed, does your Internet Options work?

(I'm using the Intel HD Graphics with 8.15.10.2361 drivers on Windows x64 if that makes a difference)

The Internet Options dialogue works perfectly fine here with the update installed.

(Intel GMA X3100, newest driver via ThinkVantage, Windows 7 x86)

[mollick2]

I think the update looks a hell of a lot better.

[SoyoS]

Shot in the dark but have you tried restarting the computer? Btw as to the pictures the fonts do indeed look different but I wouldn't say either looked better or worse than the other.

[Roger H. Veteran]

Ok then, guess it's just my PC. Everytime i install that update it does exactly the samething (to the font rendering as well as Internet Options) and yes I rebooted 3-4 times now to check if it will go away but it doesn't.

This is from a "clean" install too - i don't even have Office or any other software installed yet! Oh well - guess it just doesn't like me :whistle:

[torrentthief]

it looks much better. Gunna try enabling directwrite in firefox5 now to see if firefox5 is usable now with directwrite enabled.

[Andre S. Veteran]

IE9 Before: http://i.imgur.com/fxFlv.png

IE9 After: http://i.imgur.com/1unRF.png

IE8 mode (GDI, not DirectWrite): http://i.imgur.com/6gswk.png

Not bad. (GeForce 8800 GTS)

The GDI rendering is infinitely better than the other two. These new font rendering technologies are a step back.

[1for-matik]

The GDI rendering is infinitely better than the other two. These new font rendering technologies are a step back.

That's why Mozilla added a tiny fallback to GDI Rendering for most used fonts (by default, can be changed to all fonts) in Firefox 6. After that we have Direct2D without DirectWrite blurriness...

[Avi]

I like the update. Much better in Hebrew letters.

[Raa]

I'm going to venture a guess and say you've got a corrupted download or a bad update.

Try uninstalling/reinstalling it, or failing that (gulp) a Windows reinstall? :pinch:

[Udedenkz]

Can't tell difference

[+DonC Subscriber²]

The fonts are much improved with this update. Neowin (and Facebook) appear to have smaller fonts due to it but they really are still the same size.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I had to look at the pictures in an image editor just to see any difference, and the only difference I can see is that some characters are thinner now.

[cleverclogs]

I prefer the update, well, it looks kinda funky on Neowin - almost as if the text has gotten slightly taller / compressed. Meh!

[Guest GraphiteCube]

Well... I installed the update, but I really can't tell any differences. :blush: I rebooted the computer already.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Yeah, having installed the update it's quite clear how they've "broken" Arial (at least)

Look at the difference in the normal weight between 10.4 and 10.5 pixels, and the difference in the bold weight at 11.4 and 11.5 pixels.

[Tews]

<snipped> :whistle:

[devHead]

Yeah, having installed the update it's quite clear how they've "broken" Arial (at least)

Look at the difference in the normal weight between 10.4 and 10.5 pixels, and the difference in the bold weight at 11.4 and 11.5 pixels.

Arial is a garbage font; it deserves to be broken. Actually, it needs to go away forever. There are so many better fonts that Windows uses now. As far as other font rendering, it actually looks better to me.

[Code.Red]

I guess this update is why my fonts on Firefox look so terrible. I noticed it immediately after I restarted- all the fonts on Facebook looked much different than they did before. Smaller, taller, and blurrier. Looks the same in IE9. Chrome looks the way it does before. Check out this animated gif I just made. Which one do you think looks better?