How to Change the Default System Font on Windows 11

August 26, 2022 Abraham Smith

Windows 11 Hero Comic Sans

Windows 11 is pretty sleek compared to Windows 10, but what if you decide you don’t like the font or you just want something different? Here’s how you can use the registry to change the Windows 11 system font.

How to create a .reg file to change the default system font

Warning: Be careful when editing the registry. Carelessly deleting keys or changing values can corrupt Windows 11. If you follow our instructions carefully, everything will be fine.

Windows 11 doesn’t support changing the default system font through the usual means: you can’t do it in the Fonts window, there’s nothing in the Accessibility options, and there’s not even a Legacy option in the Control panel. This means that we need to change the Windows registry.

Find or install the font you want

The first thing to do is determine which font you want. You can view the fonts already installed on your PC by going to the Fonts window.

Click the Start button, type “font settings” in the search bar, and then click “Font settings.” Alternatively, you can open the Settings app and navigate to Personalization > Fonts

Open the start menu, search for "font settings," then open it.

Browse through the installed fonts and see if you like anything. If none of them do, don’t worry — you can always install more fonts.

TIED TOGETHER: How to install (and uninstall) fonts on Windows 11

We first need to get the correct name of the font we want to use. In the Fonts window, scroll down until you find it, then make note of the name. For example, let’s say we want to use the most controversial font in the world: Comic Sans. In our example, the correct name is “Comic Sans MS”.

Find the font you want and make a note of the correct name.

Create the .reg file

You can modify the registry directly using the Registry Editor (Regedit), or you can write a predefined registry file (.reg file) that automatically applies specific changes when you double-click it. Because this particular registry hack involves changing numerous lines, simply writing a .reg file is more efficient than manually searching the registry.

You will need a simple text editor for this step. Notepad works well if you don’t have a specific program you want to use.

Open Notepad and paste the following text into the window:

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"="NEW-FONT"

Replace “NEW-FONT” with the correct name of the font you want. This is how it looks for our Comic Sans example:

A sample REG file that changes the default system font to Comic Sans.

Once you’ve filled it out correctly, go to the top left side and click File > Save As. Name the file whatever you want (ideally something logical) and then add “.reg” to the end. Be sure to use the “.reg” file extension – otherwise it won’t work. Click “Save” and you’re done.

Use the REG file to change the default system font

Now all you have to do is double click on the REG file you created. You will receive a warning pop-up that using an untrusted REG file may harm your computer.

You can trust this REG file because we wrote it and you’ve seen everything it does. In general, you should not trust random REG files you find around the internet without checking them first. Go ahead and click “Yes” and then restart your PC. When the reboot is complete, use a new default system font.

Change the default system font back to Segoe

Of course, you won’t stick with the new font permanently when you change it. You can easily change it back at any time. You need to create another .reg file, just like we did before, except using different code. Copy and paste the following into your second .reg file:

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"=-

Then save it, just like we did before. Run the REG file, click Yes on the warning and restart your PC. Your system font will be back to normal.

The .reg file to restore the system font to the default font is always the same no matter which font you previously selected. Since it’s always the same, we’ve included it here in case you don’t want to make a different one yourself.

RestoreDefaultSystemFont.zip

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