Cleaning out your Fonts Folder
	It's easy to clean out your font folder. Note: 1USA Subscribers can use a Font Manager tool instead of having to move font files manually. Simply drag any superfulous non-system fonts out of the Fonts folder into another folder - probably a Fonts-Unused Folder that you will create. If you are familiar with Windows Explorer, this will only take two minutes. Why? Each font loads on system bootup, taking up precious memory. Windows installs a few fonts, between 24 and 36 fonts. Other programs like Corel Draw will install more than 500 fonts. At 200k per font, you can free up approx. 10 Megs of Memory!! Since each font can chew up between 85k of memory to 280k of memory, some computers won't have enough memory left over to run programs. This results in programs crashing or running slow. Programs will run slow if they are forced to use Virtual Memory - which is actually a portion of the hard drive - instead of using real memory. Real memory is the RAM Chips - which is instantaneous. Virtual Memory on the hard drive requires the computer to write the data to the hard drive then read it back, which takes much longer. In addition, some programs like the TCP/IP protocol (wsock32.dll and winsock.dll in the System Folder) may not run at all if forced to load in high memory. The solution is to clean out all those unused fonts and get back to a Lean & Mean computer. Don't Don't just go into the Fonts folder and delete them.... there may be used by Microsoft Word .DOC documents that you've created sometime in the past. 1USA recommends that you simply move the fonts out of the Font Folder into another folder. This allows you the flexibility to move some fonts back at a later date without having to re-install fonts from the original CD-Roms. Any time you move fonts around, you need to restart the computer so the new fonts will load. [Start > Shutdown > Restart the computer] Never Never flip the power switch or the Restart Button on the front of the CPU. Windows needs to close 40+ "temporary cache files" during the shutdown process. Flipping the switch without doing the [Start > Shutdown > Restart the computer] first causes the computer to 'abort' and let all those system files in an 'open' state. Some files cannot be 'shared' with another 'instance' and it will cause problems with Windows if you need to touch the Reset button or the Power button too often. Always do the [Start > Shutdown > ] procedure to turn off the computer. If you get errors, then it indicates previous damage -- like shifting gears without a clutch. (The transmission's lifetime is drastically shortened!) Moving Fonts - here is the procedure: Use Windows Explorer [Start > Programs > Windows Explorer] or two My Computer windows. Open Drive C: Open the Windows System folder (normally named C:\Windows, but could be named \Win or wherever the PC Technician placed it) In the Windows folder, create a new folder named Fonts-Unused Click on the MenuBar [File...Edit...View...] and select View... Refresh to display the Fonts-Unused folder directly beneath the existing Fonts folder. Now open the Fonts folder. On the Menubar [File...Edit...View...] click on View, then click on Details. The Detail View will show you how large the file sizes are for each font. Now simply drag any unnecessary fonts from the Fonts folder to the Fonts-Unused folder. It's that easy. Do NOT drag any fonts that begin with MS-. What is an 'unnecessary' font? It's a font that Windows doesn't use or a font that you don't need to surf the internet. What are the 'necessary' fonts? Any font used by the system. How can I tell the necessary fonts from the unnecessary fonts? It depends on which fonts are in use by your Desktop Themes and how customized your desktop is. This is one of the reasons why you shouldn't delete the fonts - only move them so they don't load. Here is a list of Fonts that are normally used daily by various programs. These fonts should not be moved: Arial Comic Sans MS Modern Roman Script Symbol Times Roman Veranda WebDings WingDings Any font with a Red icon What if I mess-up and move the wrong font - and I can no longer read the Windows messages? Don't be in a hurry. Use trial and error to locate the font in the Fonts-Unused folder and drag it back into the Fonts folder; rebooting the computer each time until you found the correct font. Goto [Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display > Appearance] and choose one of the Windows Standard Schemes.