Segoe UI gets improvements in Windows 8

By Descartes
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mentor

Descartes

Posted
Posted

Something I noticed while looking at my system calendar was that the "2" looked a little quirky - way more curved than I remembered it. I've noticed the lack of serifs in "I" and "1" before but quickly assumed that the base variant had it, and the light version didn't... a quick search for screenshots and a comparison revealed that It indeed changed.

I think it's fantastic, because the "1" always looked a bit off for me in an otherwise sans-serif font :p

Your thoughts?

9JZwQ.png

Mentor

Descartes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I agree! It's been my favourite screen font even over OSX's Lucida Grande for a while now. I think it's really elegant while also doing it's job very well.

Then there's Ubuntu, which also does a fantastic job as a screen font, but it's not nearly the same stylistically and not quite my cup of tea.

Mentor

Descartes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Something else I noticed is that in the RP they even use ligatures (combining certain letter combinations together, like "fi" and "fl") in UI text - I don't think that was in CP and in fact I'm not sure I've ever seen that in an OS before.

Hey that's quite interesting, I've never the use of ligatures in the RP myself. Do you have any screenshots?

EDIT: Gee, apparently the change occured back in March even, so the new version was already present in CP. How could I have not noticed?

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

Hell, now looks like Segoe WP, a font of the same family. I question integrity of anybody who says these changes are subtle.

And all in all it makes me wonder even more what kind of brain-eating plague is loose in Redmond lately.

Oh geez, even a font change is generating hate. :rolleyes:

Mentor

Descartes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Out of the bad things, I can't help but notice how weird "R" and "P" look next to each other. Not sure if this is also present in the older version, though - you don't see that particular combination of letters next to each other too often, and if you do, it's usually referring to the testing version of the next big thing :p:

K6mfE.png

Oh geez, even a font change is generating hate. :rolleyes:

The great thing about opinions is that anyone can have their own.

Rising Star

mzta cody

Posted
Posted

Wouldn't mind having this on Windows 7.

You can. If you've copied the Win 8 fonts somewhere (or have them on another partition along with Win 8), just use them to replace the existing ones in Win 7's Font folder. Windows 7 will permit you to do so, it'll just ask if you want to replace the existing font.

Or, if you have the installation ISO, you can use 7-zip to extract the fonts (and whatever else) from the install image.

Grand Master

Ambroos

Posted
Posted

They should have named it differently. Segoe UI Metro for example, anything really. Different fonts with the same name are never a good thing for document portability. I like using Segoe UI in documents, it's quite a good font if you're not going for print.

I'd also like to see it compared to Zegoe UI, they might very well be related.

Mentor

Descartes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

They should have named it differently. Segoe UI Metro for example, anything really. Different fonts with the same name are never a good thing for document portability. I like using Segoe UI in documents, it's quite a good font if you're not going for print.

I'd also like to see it compared to Zegoe UI, they might very well be related.

I have to disagree. These are rather subtle changes, I'd even call them fixes. As long as they don't change the glyphs' width, it's unlikely to break anything. Versioning exists for this reason precisely.

Grand Master

Phouchg

Posted
Posted

Oh geez, even a font change is generating hate. :rolleyes:

Hate is what makes me get up in the morning, sir.

Possibly because then they'd have to include both for backwards compatibility's sake, and that just seems a poorer decision to me.

Backwards compatibility is what has defined Windows ecosystem so far, and, among other things, maintained its dominance among consumer systems.

  • Duffydemon, remixedcat and Grant A.
  • Like 3
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • My favorite file manager for Windows 11 finally gets a long-requested feature

      By TarasBuria · Posted

      My favorite file manager for Windows 11 finally gets a long-requested feature by Taras Buria Files is among the best File Explorer alternatives for Windows 10 and 11. This free app is packed with all sorts of features and conveniences, but there is one crucial feature that is still missing—Tree View. Fortunately, the latest update in the Preview channel finally delivers it. With version 4.1.4, which is now available for download in the Preview channel, developers implemented Tree View, a new mode that displays folders in an expandable hierarchy. Windows 11's stock File Explorer always had this feature, but it was nowhere to be found in Files until now. Starting with the latest preview update, you can expand each drive and its nested folders without leaving the current location and then open the folder you need in the main view. To try Tree View in Files, update the app to the latest preview version, then click the small arrow next to a drive to expand its content. The developers say they are rolling out Tree View in Preview first to gather feedback from users and improve the feature before bringing it to all in the stable channel. In addition to Tree View, Files 4.1.14 improves the Windows Fonts folder. You can now preview each font directly in Files with no need to open the built-in font viewer. For now, these two features are only available in the Preview channel. For those using the stable release, developers recently released version 4.1.3, with improvements for the built-in tag system, on-demand folder size calculation, and plenty of various fixes. You can check out the full release notes here. You can download Files from the Microsoft Store (paid version) or its official website (free).
    • Report: Microsoft to use AWS to help GitHub deal with a major surge in demand

      By +LightEco · Posted

      Who is paying for this 30x scale-up? Its sounds expensive.
    • Millions of users to benefit from Windows 11's new performance boost on Adobe Photoshop

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      Millions of users to benefit from Windows 11's new performance boost on Adobe Photoshop by Sayan Sen Despite the advent of AI-generated imagery, Adobe's Photoshop remains one of the most popular tools on this planet. Adobe does not have a publicly reported total user count but it's probably not wrong to assume there are millions. As of 2025, Adobe Creative Cloud has had approximately 41 million paid subscribers, many of whom likely use Photoshop. In addition, more than 166,000 companies worldwide are apparently also using the app. These figures are according to a very recent report by SQ Magazine. Out of them, it is fair to assume that many are probably running Windows. As such, there is good news for these users as Microsoft has announced Photoshop is getting a big 20% performance boost on x86-64 (AMD64) systems and a 13% bump-up on Arm devices. This is definitely great news for them as many have complained about the slow performance and general sluggishness of Photoshop on Windows 11 ever since the advent of the latter back in 2021. If you are wondering how Microsoft managed to do this, the answer lies in a combination of compiler-level optimizations and a technology called Sample Profile Guided Optimization (SPGO). According to Microsoft, Adobe worked closely with the company’s Visual C++ team and adopted the latest MSVC toolchain enhancements together with SPGO to squeeze more performance out of Photoshop’s CPU-bound workloads. Unlike traditional Profile Guided Optimization (PGO), which requires developers to create special instrumented builds and run lengthy training workloads, SPGO gathers performance data directly from optimized release binaries. This means Adobe could collect real-world usage information which gives a major advantage to this technique, as companies could leverage data collected from actual customer workloads rather than only relying on synthetic benchmark runs. In theory, this should allow optimizations to better reflect how users interact with software in the real world. Thanks to this, there are improvements to code layout, function inlining, hot-and-cold code separation, and other low-level tweaks that help processors execute instructions more efficiently. Essentially the compiler is better able to identify “hot” code paths, those which are most frequently executed, and optimize them accordingly.
    • The 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD hits lowest price in over three months

      By fernan99 · Posted

      "The 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD hits lowest price in over three months¨ I'd prefer to see the lowest price in over a year
    • The 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD hits lowest price in over three months

      By sphbecker · Posted

      Glad these prices are starting to come down, but that is still crazy. I bought the 2TB 9100 Pro (slightly more expensive version with PCIe 5.0) last year for $240.

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      521
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      174
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      90
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      81
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      70
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!