Solved How to remove "default system fonts"

chiropterist · May 7, 2024

OK, I have tried all the self-help recipes I could find on the internet, and I still can't get rid of the gazillion fonts Microsoft throws at us (I only want a handful of of them). Does anyone have a method that works?

abactuon · May 7, 2024

1. It doesn't make much sense, they don't use a lot of system resources.
2. Font is a regular system file. You can get permissions to delete it.
3. The "Windows Font Cache Service" service can be stopped.
4. To hide fonts from application programs:
### Inactive Fonts (Hide)
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing
$f = (New-Object System.Drawing.Text.InstalledFontCollection).Families | Where-Object {$_.Name -NotLike "*IBM*" -and $_.Name -NotLike "*Arial*" -and $_.Name -NotLike "Times New Roman" -and $_.Name -NotLike "*Terminus*" -and $_.Name -NotLike "Segoe*"}
New-Item -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Font Management"
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Font Management" -Name 'Inactive Fonts' -PropertyType MultiString -Value $f.Name

Berton · May 7, 2024

In Control Panel and Fonts then right-clicking one will give a number of choices, one that be useful is Delete and another is Hide. The main thing with Fonts is Windows has defaults for display of everything and programs default to what the include but can be set for others. As mentioned the files are small, my Win11 with Microsoft 365 and a few other programs installed has 233 Fonts installed with 701 files in the Fonts folder which is only 466MB in size. Fonts in Control Panel show a smaller number probably because it is enumerating the names and there's versions of those names giving the total files number in File Explorer larger.

AmericanPharaoh · May 7, 2024

chiropterist said:
OK, I have tried all the self-help recipes I could find on the internet, and I still can't get rid of the gazillion fonts Microsoft throws at us (I only want a handful of of them). Does anyone have a method that works?

Have you tried this?

abactuon · May 7, 2024

In the cache of fonts get only used fonts or in general all?

chiropterist · May 8, 2024

@AmericanPharaoh
Yes, I did try the method proposed by the video, but I get the error message: "Error Deleting Values. Unable to delete all specified values."
@abactuon
I understand that font files don't use up a lot of resources, but they clog up the dropdown list in LibreOffice. Your #4 seems like what I need to do. Unfortunately, I don't understand the syntax. Where does this code go?

Dannydet · May 8, 2024

You might have to navigate to the Libreoffice application folder, and within it's subfolders find the fonts folder, and delete them directly from there.

Berton · May 8, 2024

Don't forget that the Fonts are also used when viewing data such as on the Internet, not just in word processing and other programs in creating documents.

Kees · May 8, 2024

As long as I am using Windows versions, that have those 'eastern' fonts (I think it was at the introduction of Windows 7), I have been succesfully disabling those fonts by the method in the video in #4. The only difference is that I am using a registry file in stead of editing directly in the registry. Editing is too much work, chances are that you do something wrong and when you have to do it all over at reinstallation, you have the registryfile at hand.

But I always first make a backup of the key "Fonts" here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts

After that I do the registry-file trick.
The last registry-file that I made for Windows 11 is to be found in the attachment.
Of course it can be edited for future purposes.

chiropterist · May 10, 2024

@Kees
This is exactly what I needed. Thanks
@abactuon
Sorry that I couldn't understand your code
@Dannydet
LibreOffice pulls its font list from the OS; there is no way to edit it.
Thanks to all for your help.