How to Change the Default System Font on Windows 11

Windows 11 is pretty sleek compared to Windows 10, but what if you decide that you don’t like the font, or just want something different? Here’s how you can use the registry to change Windows 11’s system font.

How to Create A REG File to Change the Default System Font

Warning: Be careful when editing the registry. Carelessly deleting keys or modifying values can break Windows 11. If you carefully follow our instructions, you’ll be just fine.

Windows 11 doesn’t support changing the default system font through any of the usual means: you can’t do it in the Fonts window, there isn’t anything in Accessibility features, and there isn’t even a legacy option in the Control Panel. That means we’ll have to modify the Windows Registry.

Find or Install the Font You Want

The first thing you need to do is identify which font you want. You can view the fonts that are already installed on your PC by going to the Fonts window.

Click the Start button, type “font settings” into the search bar, then click “Fonts Settings.” Alternatively, you can open the Settings app and navigate to Personalization > Fonts

Scroll through the installed fonts and see if anything appeals to you. If none of them do, don’t worry — you can always install more fonts.

RELATED: How to Install (and Uninstall) Fonts on Windows 11

We need to get the proper name of the font we want to use first. Scroll down in the fonts window until you find it, then note the name. Let’s say for example we want to use the most controversial font in the world: Comic Sans. The proper name is “Comic Sans MS” in our example.

Create the REG File

You can modify the registry directly using the Registry Editor (Regedit), or you can write a pre-defined registry file (REG file) that will automatically apply certain changes when you double click it. Since this particular registry hack requires changing numerous lines, it is more efficient to just write a REG file than to go through the registry manually.

You’ll need a plain text editor for this step. Notepad will do just fine if you don’t have any specific program you want to use.

Open up Notepad, then paste the following text into the window:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"=""
"Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)"=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

"Segoe UI"="NEW-FONT"

Change out “NEW-FONT” for the proper name of whichever font you want. This is what it looks like for our Comic Sans example:

Once you’ve got it filled out appropriately go to the top left-hand side and click File > Save As. Name the file whatever you want (ideally something logical), then put “.reg” at the end. It is absolutely essential that you use the “.reg” file extension — it won’t work otherwise. Click “Save,” and you’re done.

Use the REG File to Change the Default System Font

All you need to do now is double-click the REG file you created. You’ll get a warning popup that using an untrustworthy REG file can harm your computer.

You can trust this REG file since we wrote it, and you’ve seen everything it does. Generally, you shouldn’t trust random REG files you find on the internet without checking them first.  Go ahead and click “Yes,” then restart your PC. When it finishes restarting, you’ll be using a new default system font.

Change the Default System Font Back to Segoe

Of course, you aren’t permanently stuck with the new font once you change it. You can easily change it back at any time. You need to create another REG file just like we did before, except you’ll use different code. Copy and paste the following into your second REG file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]
"Segoe UI (TrueType)"="segoeui.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black (TrueType)"="seguibl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)"="seguibli.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"="segoeuib.ttf"
"Segoe UI Bold Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuiz.ttf"
"Segoe UI Emoji (TrueType)"="seguiemj.ttf"
"Segoe UI Historic (TrueType)"="seguihis.ttf"
"Segoe UI Italic (TrueType)"="segoeuii.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light (TrueType)"="segoeuil.ttf"
"Segoe UI Light Italic (TrueType)"="seguili.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold (TrueType)"="seguisb.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semibold Italic (TrueType)"="seguisbi.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight (TrueType)"="segoeuisl.ttf"
"Segoe UI Semilight Italic (TrueType)"="seguisli.ttf"
"Segoe UI Symbol (TrueType)"="seguisym.ttf"
"Segoe MDL2 Assets (TrueType)"="segmdl2.ttf"
"Segoe Print (TrueType)"="segoepr.ttf"
"Segoe Print Bold (TrueType)"="segoeprb.ttf"
"Segoe Script (TrueType)"="segoesc.ttf"
"Segoe Script Bold (TrueType)"="segoescb.ttf"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

"Segoe UI"=-

Then save it, just like we did before. Run the REG file, click “Yes” at the warning, and then restart your PC. Your system font will be back to normal.

The REG file to restore the system font to the default font will always be the same, irrespective of what font you selected previously. Since it is always the same, we’ve included it here, in case you don’t want to make another one yourself.

RestoreDefaultSystemFont.zip