You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “How to delete Windows 10 system fonts for real, not just remove registry references to them”.
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “How to delete Windows 10 system fonts for real, not just remove registry references to them”.
When I try to delete some fonts, I’m getting this error message: “The action can’t be completed because the file is open in fontdrvhost.exe.” From what I’ve read online, forcing fontdrvhost to quit is A Bad Thing. Any suggestions? TIA
Hi Beal, I wouldn’t force fontdrvhost.exe to quit, either—better that the fonts are not loaded to begin with, which was what I hoped my suggestion would do. Which ones aren’t budging?
Since I wrote the post I noticed Windows had duplicated a set of fonts under c:\users\[My name]\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\fonts which could also cause a problem. I opened this query at Microsoft Answers, though I haven’t carried out Van’s suggestion yet. There’s a chance that some issues are down to these duplicates.
I couldn’t delete Malgun Gothic, Marlett, MS Gothic, Nirmala, and Yu Gothic. I successfully deleted Constantia, Impact, Leelawadee, MingLiU, PhagsPa, and MS Reference Specialty. Hopefully I didn’t delete anything important (eek!).
You wouldn’t be using programs that require Asian typefaces, would you? Regardless, I wouldn’t remove Marlett, MS Gothic or Yu Gothic though—looking through their character sets, Windows may need some of their glyphs to draw boxes and some parts of the UI. That might explain why those don’t budge, and there’s a chance the others are staying for a similar reason.
Nope, I don’t use Asian typefaces, and as far as I know, I’m not using any programs that require them. Well, unless Chrome counts — it’s my browser of choice, and it displays Asian characters in YouTube comments.
I noticed when I wrote the original post that Chromium browsers do tend to load certain fonts, regardless of what you have in the usual registry keys, so Chrome’s capture of some of those could well be why you can’t delete them easily. And I see your point about fontdrvhost—after seeing this I definitely wouldn’t recommend force-quitting it.
Oh well… at least I got some fonts deleted! Thanks so much for your help! :-)
You’re very welcome!
I don’t know if this article is still active enough to recieve a reply, but In hopes that it is I leave this: I don’t see anywhere in your article that describes step by ste instructions, and I would be ecstatic if I could get my hands on them. I hate 3/4 of the fonts. I am not a computer genious, but I am also not on lower end of the intellect spectrum. If any one here could please direct me to where I may find step by step instructions I would be forever grateful. thank you
Sorry, I don’t know what you mean about not seeing instructions. This is a personal journal and I’m not a computer tech, but what you read in the post are the steps I’ve taken. The user above, Beal, seems to have been able to follow them.