How to change the default system font in Windows 10

Both Windows 7 and Windows 8.x let you set which font to use throughout the operating system. Windows 10 however, restricts users to Segoe UI. This is a nice typeface, and it gives the operating system a modern look, but if you would prefer to change the font to something else -- Comic Sans for example -- you can with a registry tweak.

To change the font, right-click on the desktop, select Personalize, and click Fonts on the left-hand side. Decide which font you want, and then Open Notepad. Paste in the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

"Segoe UI"="Newfont"

Replace 'Newfont' with the name of the font you want from the Fonts page. Be sure to copy it exactly.

Click on File, go to 'Save as' and in the 'Save as type' box select All Files.

Change the extension from .txt to .reg and save the file to the desktop.

Double-click on the file and your changes will be made in the registry. Restart your PC to action the switch.

To go back to Windows 10’s default font, Segoe UI, you will need to create a new Notepad file with the following text, and then repeat the other steps above.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black (TrueType)"="seguibl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)"="seguibli.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuiz.ttf"
"Segoe UI Emoji (TrueType)"="seguiemj.ttf"
"Segoe UI Historic (TrueType)"="seguihis.ttf"
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuii.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"="segoeuil.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light Italic (TrueType)"="seguili.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"="seguisb.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold Italic (TrueType)"="seguisbi.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight (TrueType)"="segoeuisl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight Italic (TrueType)"="seguisli.ttf"
"Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)"="seguisym.ttf"
"Segoe MDL2 Assets (TrueType)"="segmdl2.ttf"
"Segoe Print (TrueType)"="segoepr.ttf"
"Segoe Print Bold (TrueType)"="segoeprb.ttf"
"Segoe Script (TrueType)"="segoesc.ttf"
"Segoe Script Bold (TrueType)"="segoescb.ttf"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

"Segoe UI"=-

Image credit: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock