So ..... how do you REALLY turn off Clear Type?

[woody.cool]

Hi all,

I've got an interesting problem.
My laptop has quite a bad screen, and Clear Type renders very badly on it.

Anyway, I've turned off Clear Type in the Display Properties, in the IE properties and even turned off font smoothing altogether in the Performance Properties .... HOWEVER .... Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger) INSISTS on using a font with Clear Type.

I see no option in MSN to turn it off, and the text is almost unreadable :x

Anybody know how to turn this off?

I'm using Windows XP Professional SP3, Windows Live Messenger build 14.0.8064.206 and WLM/MSN is using the Segoi UI font. I've changed the font, and although it makes it more readable, Clear Type is definitely still on!

So, any ideas?

[Shoonay]

I've turned off Clear Type in the Display Properties

You mean by using that cool Power Toy type proggie called... ClearType (or something like that)? If so I'm afraid there's not much to do other then maybe upgrade MSN to the latest version (whichever that is, I don't use it) and try there?
Maybe there is a hidden registry string to turn it off?

[woody.cool]

I've turned off Clear Type in the Display Properties

You mean by using that cool Power Toy type proggie called... ClearType (or something like that)? If so I'm afraid there's not much to do other then maybe upgrade MSN to the latest version (whichever that is, I don't use it) and try there?
Maybe there is a hidden registry string to turn it off?

Right!
MSN version I have IS the latest version.
As for turning off the Clear Type, I turned it off the proper way, in Windows Display Properties .... which turns it off for 99% of applications (apart from those that Microsoft make to ENFORCE the use of Clear Type)

[Harrison]

Do you have the Cleartype Tuner Powertool installed?

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...ePowerToy.mspx

If ypou run that with cleartype active on the system, you can run through a set of steps to pick what looks best on your system. Using that you should be able to tune Cleartype to work well even on a bad screen.

[woody.cool]

Well, I've settled for running the Clear Type tuner .... it looks quite a bit better now, but I'm unimpressed with the fact that MSN enforces the use of Clear Type.

[Harrison]

As you are using XP, Cleartype is an extra you install, you you also have the option to uninstall it.

[demusse]

downgrading your msn version will surely help !
or dump messenger all together and use an alternative