Hi!

Recently I found a lot of fonts inside my fonts folder that I did not
install. So I decided to move them out. (Unfortunatedly I did not figure
out which newly installed program installed these fonts)
I opened a new folder (on a network directory) and put the fonts to it.
But they were moved, not copied!
Although that was it what I indeed wanted, I thought that they normally
should just be copied, not moved.

My boyfriend is very amused since I seem to find many bugs related to
the fonts folder in Windows. Once I tried to copy the whole folder to
another location which urged Windows to switch the system font to
another one. In my case it was "Alienator". That looks really funny,
but the only chance one has is to shut down. (It got a bug report number
on Microsoft)

This bug seems to be also in WinXP, so don't try it, if the
alphabeticatelly first font in your fonts folder is a dingbat font!

Greetings from Dani

I don't know EXACTLY
what you did (and I'm sure you don't remember precisely either) so
can't figure out why your attempted copy resulted in a move. In
general, if you drag and drop within the same DISK drive, the system
moves things. You need to hold down the CTRL key to force a COPY.
Conversely, from one drive to another defaults to a copy unless you
hold down the SHIFT key to force a MOVE.

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:44:39 -0700, Character wrote:

I don't know EXACTLY
what you did (and I'm sure you don't remember precisely either) so
can't figure out why your attempted copy resulted in a move. In
general, if you drag and drop within the same DISK drive, the system
moves things. You need to hold down the CTRL key to force a COPY.
Conversely, from one drive to another defaults to a copy unless you
hold down the SHIFT key to force a MOVE.



As you say, the Fonts folder is "special." Specifically, it's got a
Shell namespace extension that overlays it, so when you think you're
interacting with the Fonts folder in Explorer, what you're really
interacting with is the namespace extension that overlays that folder.
That's why it looks different from DOS, too; DOS doesn't understand
shell namespace extensions.

One of the things that the namespace extension does is provide more or
less transparent installation and removal of fonts. If you drag a font
file into the Fonts folder, it's automatically installed, which means
that in addition to being copied into the Fonts folder on the disk, it's
also loaded into GDI and written into the registry, and the WM_FONTCHANGE
message is sent to all top-level windows so they know to update any
internal font lists they might have.

Obviously, if dragging a font into the Fonts folder installs it, then
dragging it back out should uninstall it. But since the Fonts folder
is really a virtual view of all installed fonts, wherever they may be,
uninstalling it is effectively the same as moving it out of the Fonts
folder. So, as you'll see if you try it, dragging a font out of the
Fonts folder moves it, rather than copying it.

Ron -

Right you are - and thank you for the more detailed explanation.

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:50:49 -0700, Character wrote:
Ron -

Right you are - and thank you for the more detailed explanation.

Incidentally, the fact that the Fonts folder is a namespace extension
explains why my font previewer plugin thingy doesn't work there, too.
It wants filenames, but the concept of filenames doesn't necessarily
exist in namespace extensions. Now that I've written this, I'm
thinking
there must be some way I can make it work there, too....

You can get filenames by selecting "Details" on the View pull-down menu.

"Ron Parker" <this#is$really*my&address! at (no spam) parkrrrr.com> wrote in message
news:slrnh54qdt.882.this%23is$really*my&address! at (no spam) mail.parkrrrr.com...

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:50:49 -0700, Character wrote:

Ron -

Right you are - and thank you for the more detailed explanation.

Incidentally, the fact that the Fonts folder is a namespace extension
explains why my font previewer plugin thingy doesn't work there, too.
It wants filenames, but the concept of filenames doesn't necessarily
exist in namespace extensions. Now that I've written this, I'm
thinking
there must be some way I can make it work there, too....


You can get filenames by selecting "Details" on the View pull-down menu.
If you have "Hide Variations" on the same menu checked you may want to
uncheck it.

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:50:49 -0700, Character wrote:

Ron -

Right you are - and thank you for the more detailed explanation.


Incidentally, the fact that the Fonts folder is a namespace extension
explains why my font previewer plugin thingy doesn't work there, too.
It wants filenames, but the concept of filenames doesn't necessarily
exist in namespace extensions. Now that I've written this, I'm thinking
there must be some way I can make it work there, too....

There are a couple of fonts out there that when opened with fontview
cause a BSOD - your plugin does the same; but there's nothing you can
do about it.

On Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:01:38 -0700, Character wrote:

There are a couple of fonts out there that when opened with fontview
cause a BSOD - your plugin does the same; but there's nothing you can
do about it.


That's not necessarily true. If they're causing a BSOD, it's quite possible
that it's a bug in a display driver, perhaps caused by hardware acceleration
that can't deal with some specific outline. There are a couple things I
could do to keep those outlines from getting all the way to the display
driver, I suspect. However, it would potentially slow things down.

Of course, the question is, what good would it do? You might be able to see
the font, but you'd never be able to use it.