Monday, March 12, 2012

Friends don't let friends use Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Here is a screenshot that I hope will be worth 1000 words.  Click it to download it in its full size (1680x1050).


What you see is Windows 8 Consumer Preview with a modified High Contrast theme and three types of font smoothing (none, grayscale and ClearType), even though the setting is clearly OFF in the displayed "ClearType Text Tuner" and in the option "Smooth edges of screen fonts" has also been turned off in "Performance Options".

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I can't stand any form of on-screen font smoothing and my inability to turn it off, despite even trying the usual registry modifications (see below) means I will not only NOT be using Windows 8, but also I will NOT be developing applications for Windows 8.

These changes are usually sufficient to get Windows to stop smoothing fonts system-wide (except in Internet Explorer 9):

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothingType"=dword:00000000
"FontSmoothing"="0"

I have other concerns with Windows 8, but this is the most ridiculous one.