Solved Cannot delete surplus fonts: "protected system font"

Dogmatix

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Windows 8 comes with a whole lot of fonts pre-installed, quite a few of which I do not need and are merely cluttering up the place. I would especially like to get rid of the specialised fonts for Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabic, Indian etc, etc & so 4th.

However, for many of them, when I try to delete them, I get the message that they are "protected system fonts". Surely, there aren't that many system fonts? Can we not get rid of or hide these fonts any more? Surely they are an unnecessary drain on resources, and boot-time extenders?
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
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Thanks, Shawn, that works - I can hide (and un-hide) these stubborn fonts.

Not only are a lot of fonts protected, I also get the message that fonts cannot be deleted as they are 'in use'. I find this difficult to believe when no other programs are open. Although these surplus fonts are hideable, so they don't clutter font lists in programs, they are still unnecessarily loaded at start-up.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Shuttle SD11G5
    CPU
    Pentium M
    Motherboard
    Shuttle SD11G5
    Memory
    plenty
    Graphics Card(s)
    on-board (Intel 915GM)
You're welcome. I'm glad that will work for you. :)

Sine they were included in Windows 8, they are considered protected OS system files, and is why it will not let you delete them easily to prevent accidentally deleting one that's "in use" by the OS or some program. For what little HDD space they take up, it's not worth the risk of problems by deleting them. Hiding them works good enough.

If you had installed 3rd party fonts, then those would be safe to delete as loing as they are not in use though.

Fonts - Delete - Windows 7 Forums
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
You're welcome. I'm glad that will work for you. :)

Sine they were included in Windows 8, they are considered protected OS system files, and is why it will not let you delete them easily to prevent accidentally deleting one that's "in use" by the OS or some program. For what little HDD space they take up, it's not worth the risk of problems by deleting them. Hiding them works good enough.

If you had installed 3rd party fonts, then those would be safe to delete as loing as they are not in use though.

Fonts - Delete - Windows 7 Forums

It's not about disk space these days. Disk drives are huge. It's about having control over your own computer. People that try to delete fonts usually know what they are doing. If a program looks weird after because it had to default to another font then fine. At least I have control over the machine. Also, they can make programs load slow while they stop to read all the useless fonts.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
Can't argue with that. I just would recommend to hide the fonts, or keep a backup of them before permanently deleting the fonts to be able to easily restore one if needed afterwards. This way you could test for issues before deleting.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    64-bit Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self built
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K OC'd to 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    OCZ Series Gold OCZZ1000M 1000W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Malwarebyte Anti-Malware Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
Some of the fonts are protected even without them being used at the time because windows swaps unknown fonts with closest mach already installed. I don't think that win7 and later widows read all the fonts at sturtup like XP and older ones did, at that time having a lot of fonts installed used to slow down boot time.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
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