Fonts Display Incorrectly if More than 48 MB Worth of Fonts Exists (219298)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP1
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP2
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP3
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP4
- Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition 4.0 SP4
This article was previously published under Q219298 SYMPTOMS
When you run any program that includes True Type fonts (for example, Windows NT shell, Microsoft Office, Microsoft WordPad, and so forth), you may experience the following symptoms:
- Fonts are displayed incorrectly.
- Unknown characters are displayed.
- Blank space are displayed.
This article does not apply to printer fonts. Printer font output is not impacted by the 48 MB limit.
CAUSE
This behavior occurs because there is a 48 MB memory limit for fonts on a computer running Windows NT 4.0. After a computer running Windows NT reaches the 48 MB font limit, that session's fonts are displayed incorrectly as there is no room available to load and map fonts.
RESOLUTIONTo resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
152734 How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack
STATUSMicrosoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5.MORE INFORMATION
For example, a computer running Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 with Office 2000 installed has approximately 20 MB of total fonts. If you enable the Japanese (8 MB), Korean (15 MB), and Chinese (8 MB) language settings, you reach approximately 51 MB of total fonts.
The 48 MB limit is easily reached on a computer running Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Office 2000 without enabling fonts for other languages. You can reach this limit by browsing Web pages. IE5 automatically installs fonts not currently loaded.
Simply deleting True Type fonts to an amount lower than the 48 MB limit may not resolve the issue.
You can view the fonts loaded on your computer by using the Control Panel Fonts tool. You can view the size of each font by opening a command prompt and going to the \%SystemRoot%\Font folder and typing DIR. If the size of the \%SystemRoot%\Font folder is equal to or greater than 48 MB, you may experience this issue.
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5 increases the font limit to 128 MB.
| Modification Type: | Minor | Last Reviewed: | 6/5/2006 |
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| Keywords: | kbHotfixServer kbQFE kbbug kbfix KB219298 |
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