Lose Your Mind Development

Because font listed in the Registry can still go bad….

Most Windows users know about the the Registry. In short, the Registry is where Windows stores configuration information for both hardware and software.

It also stores information about fonts.

When you drag a file into the Windows Fonts folder, Windows adds an entry for the font to the Registry so that the font will be installed the next time you reboot your PC and start Windows. Font information is stored in the following section of the Registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts

The entries looks like this:

So how does this relate to a new feature in Printer’s Apprentice?

The Fonts section of the Registry can often get corrupt. Your Registry can get populated with invalid font entries by well-meaning applications or by uninstalling software that does not properly clean up after itself. And when this happens, sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and manually edit the Registry.

To help with this situation, we are adding a Font Registry editor to Printer’s Apprentice. Ancient versions of Printer’s Apprentice used to have a this feature – it just never made it to the recent 8.x versions.

Here is a screenshot.

Main Features

• Lists the overall status of the Fonts section of the Registry.
• Lists the status of the each font key and value.
• Lists specific reasons why a given font key is considered to be corrupt or invalid.
• Lists specific actions to take for a corrupt key – Delete the key or Repair it.
• Repair function steps you through selecting a font file for the key to point to. If the font is not installed, the Repair function will install it as well.
• Includes an Export to Text File function for saving the contents of the font section.
• Includes a Print function.
• A “Clean All” function will delete all invalid or corrupt entries.

The screen is fairly comprehensive in scope. It is superior to other “Registry Cleaner” tools for the following reasons:

1. The scope is limited to the fonts section of the Registry.
2. The screen shows clear, specific reasons why a particular key is invalid.
3. It offers specific actions to take when a key is invalid.
4. The screen will warn the user if they are removing a key for a font that ships with Windows.

As I mentioned above, the screen is close to being finished. But if you have any suggestions, shoot me a note at helpdesk at lose your mind dot com.