Microsoft is aggravating me

[billinchina]

I just bought a beautiful new Sony VAIO notebook with Windows 7. I've been customizing the heck out of this thing to get it to look good and my biggest battles are with ClearType blurry fonts. My screen is really, really good, so you almost need a magnifying glass to read the screen at native resolution. So, I changed the resolution to make things larger. That makes ClearType look hideous. After editing the registry and turning off ClearType and font smoothing wherever possible, some of the blurry fonts keep creeping up. Also, some of my crisp fonts are way too big. When I type something into the search box in Google.com with Internet Explorer, the text in the search box input is bold instead of normal like it is in Firefox. I hate to say it, but I'm about to switch to using Firefox full time because of that (I've been trying to hold out on doing that for reasons which most here probably wouldn't agree with).

I think the handwriting is on the wall for Microsoft. Maybe not within the next 10 years, but eventually Linux is probably going to win everyone's hearts. There aren't enough professional programs and games available for it at this time. However, being that it is open source, it will constantly improve itself until it is the dominate operating system. If blurry fonts were a problem and bothered enough people using Ubuntu, then someone would eventually fix it (add a customization option) and all would benefit from the customization.

Windows should have hired a tester, who should have tried changing his screen resolution to something that made ClearType look hideous. Then, that tester should have complained until they made an easy way to disable all blurry fonts (that means in Office 2007's email reader pane as well) and just leave everything jagged and crisp. Why that didn't happen, I have no clue. All I know is that it brings me one step closer to leaving Windows behind and embracing Linux full-time (rather than just as a virtual guest through VirtualBox).

Really, I hardly ever play games any more (maybe once every few months). Also, I don't use PhotoShop every day. It wouldn't be that big of a deal for me to open Windows in VirtualBox when I needed to run those, and use Linux full-time.

That's enough venting for the evening...

By the way, are there any Mac users out there with ClearType problems or did Steve Jobs allow people to view jagged fonts if they want to?

 

[andr69]

I also think sometimes that Microsoft does not corroborate the quality of its produscts. But... they are the leaders of the world's market, we have nothing to do with this but humble((

 

[labrocca]

This is probably an Explorer problem. You also might want to install more fonts. On pages with the blurry text view the CSS and see what font it's using. Make sure you have it.

 

[billinchina]

I got the reader pane of Outlook 2007 as well as Word 2007 to look clear. I gave up on fooling around with making Google look better in IE and decided to just use Firefox instead. I'm happier now that Office looks good enough.