Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Help, too doggone many fonts!

Oct 31, 2010 1:33PM PDT

In my Dell Vostro 1500 laptop with 4 GB RAM and running Vista Ultimate, it seems like every doggone program I have installs TONS of fonts whether I want 'em or not, so now after nearly 3 years I have the appalling total of 2900+ fonts! I think they're slowing my system down; it takes forever to shut down for one thing!

I did a backup of the folder and then tried to delete some of the fonts, as many are repetitious in appearance and I'll never use them, only the system won't let me delete any of them; I get a message that the file is open in another program and that I should close that program and try again... only it's not!

I've tried it from Explorer and from Control Panel, as well as in Safe Mode. Same message. I've even tried a couple of freeware programs that are supposed to take care of such issues... they didn't!

I had a conversation with a tech friend the other day... I told him my problem and he exclaimed, "Oh, no, you can't delete fonts! No Windows system will let you- they never have!" I replied that I had indeed deleted fonts back when I had XP, and he just kept saying no, nope, you couldn't have. Hey, I'm not THAT senile!

Isn't there ANY way I can get rid of some of these blasted fonts? Will I have to bite the bullet and do the reformat/reinstall thing?

Thank you very much!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
That certainly seems a lot.
Oct 31, 2010 9:50PM PDT
- Collapse -
Thanks! I'll give it a shot!
Nov 1, 2010 2:29AM PDT

...and let you know.

Thanx again, Mark (and Larry!)