In Windows 7 and before, you could change the system font through an easy-to-use dialog window. In Windows 8, Microsoft took that window away and made it near impossible to change the system font, though there was a working Windows 8 Font Changer tool.

Now, in Windows 10, we're out of luck. Microsoft still won't let us change fonts, and there's no font-changing tool to use. The only way around this is to edit a few fields in the registry, but this can be risky. One mistake and you might cause irreparable damage.

An Easy Way to Change Font in Windows 10

Since we will be tweaking the Registry Editor, it's best to create a registry backup to restore it later if anything goes wrong. Once that's done, you can follow the below steps to change the font in Windows 10:

  1. Open the Start Menu, type Regedit, and use that to launch the Registry Editor.
  2. In the editor, navigate in the left sidebar to the following path or paste it directly:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Fonts
  3. Then, in the right panel, look for every item that starts with Segoe UI.
  4. For each one, right-click on it, select Modify, clear the Value Data field, and click OK.
    Tweaking the Value Data of a Font Key in Windows 10 Registry Editor
  5. Continue until you've done every Segoe UI item.
  6. Once you are done, navigate to the left sidebar to the following path or paste it directly:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ FontSubstitutes
  7. Now right-click in an empty area in the right panel, select New > String and call it Segoe UI.
  8. Then, right-click on the newly-created Segoe UI item and select Modify.
  9. For Value Data, enter Tahoma (or whatever other font you want to use).
    Creating a New String and Entering Value Data for It in Windows Registry Editor

Close the editor, sign out of Windows, and sign back in. You should now see the new system font.

Set Your Desired Font in Windows

By now, you should be familiar with changing the font in Windows 10. So, simply select the font name you wish to use, enter it in the Value Data field, and improve the appearance of your operating system.