‘Blurry fonts’ bug KB 2670838 persists with IE11 and Windows 7

Six months ago I wrote about botched Windows patch KB 2670838, which caused Firefox (and apparently Chrome) to display fonts on-screen with odd rendering problems. (Here’s an example, linked from the Firefox forums.)

Microsoft didn’t solve the problem, but it did publish a list of video drivers thought to conflict with the patch. The company also modified the installer to avoid planting the font-busting patch on machines running the identified bad video drivers. That list, toward the bottom of article KB 2670838, has gone through eight major revisions.

I’m now seeing complaints all over the Web that installing Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 can trigger the same problem — and the fuzzy fonts appear even on machines that aren’t running any of the identified problematic video drivers. I’m also seeing reports that the fuzzy fonts crop up on Firefox, Chrome, and — remarkably — Internet Explorer itself. Some people report that the fuzziness goes away if the pages are refreshed enough times. Others see fuzzy characters only on some pages, but very similar pages don’t have the problem.

If you have a case of the font fuzzies and are using IE10, the only known solution involves uninstalling KB 2670838. But if you’ve installed IE11, you may or may not have KB 2670838 — and if you do have it, uninstalling doesn’t fix the problem.

Microsoft has officially released IE11 for Windows 7. The IEBlog announcement goes on to say:

We will begin automatically updating Windows 7 customers to IE11 in the weeks ahead, starting today with customers running the IE11 Developer and Release Previews

Thus, at some unknown point “in the weeks ahead,” your Windows 7 machines will get IE11 through Automatic Update, assuming you have Automatic Update turned on. Fuzzy fonts could be in your future. (Indeed, for Windows 8 and 8.1 users, fuzzy fonts may well be part of your fast and fluid enhanced user experience; no word on Windows RT.)

Readers have written to tell me that Microsoft’s suggested solutions — in KB 2638466 — don’t work. The solutions are also more than a bit condescending and/or misleading: “Check your viewing angle.” “Upgrade your monitor.” “Get good cables.” “It’s all in your head, take two aspirin.”

If you’re unlucky enough to have the wrong kind of video card and/or driver, and you’re experiencing this problem after IIE11 was installed, several suggested corrections may or may not work.

One reader reports that he got rid of the problem in Firefox by going to the options menu within Mozilla Firefox > Options > Options > Advanced > and Unchecking “Use Hardware Acceleration when available.” The reader’s using an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 video card on a Toshiba Satellite laptop — which is not one of the bad cards on the KB 2670838 list.

Poster access-mdb on the Windows Secrets forum used a less drastic approach to fix Firefox: On the Firefox about:config page, set gfx.content.azure.enabled to False (the general fix-all approach I recommended in May).

On the same thread, ron007 says he’s having the same problem with Office 2013 and Windows 8.1. He describes three options: 1) disable hardware acceleration in the application (such as Word); 2) hack the registry to disable hardware acceleration in general; and 3) use the Windows 7 display setting dialog to turn off hardware acceleration. He also suggests that if those approaches don’t work, you can turn off high contrast in Windows 8 and/or hack the registry to fix blurring in PowerPoint 2013.

On the DSLReports forum, SpHeRe31459 says he’s seen the bug appear on older Radeon HD 3400 and 2400 hardware. His suggestion is to fix Firefox by setting gfx.content.azure.enabled to False and/or gfx.direct2d.disabled to True. Of course, those fixes won’t help with Internet Explorer or Chrome.

If it’s any consolation, Mozilla has filed a Firefox bug on the problem, though it isn’t clear if the bug only covers the original KB 2670838 problem or if it extends to the IE11-on-Windows 7 manifestation, or even Windows 8 or 8.1. A problem like this will leave Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google pointing fingers at one another — lots of good that does those of us who use their products.

At this point, Microsoft is quite aware of the problem. It’s existed for a long, long time and the Microsoft Answers forum is peppered with complaints. Whether the company will take the reports seriously enough to solve the problem remains to be seen. Keep that in mind when you read about IE11’s new performance, standards, and security improvements. The upgrade on Windows 7 may not go as well as you hope.

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