"Terminal 10pt"

[maxg]

Hello all,

Long time SecureCRT user, first time poster.

I've recently begun the migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 and was horrified to find that the font labeled "Terminal" has changed drastically.

After some research I've found that the font on XP lives in vgasyst.fon, but I seem to be unable to install it in a way that SecureCRT will allow me to use it.

The original "Terminal" is (nearly?) identical to the System 8x32 font available in cmd.exe (on both XP and Windows 7).

Is there any way to get my beloved "one true font" back into SecureCRT? I use it across nearly 40 sessions and have tried all available alternatives without success.

Thanks in advance!

[miked]

Hello,

Thanks for posting! I see the same terminal font in SecureCRT 6.5 for XP and Windows 7, so I'm not sure why you see a different font.

Which version of SecureCRT are you using (Help / About)?

Are you using multiple tabs?

Could you upload a window shot showing the entire SecureCRT window in XP and in Windows 7?

[maxg]

Hi mike, thanks for the quick response.

I'm using 6.2.3 build 313 on both I believe.

Here is an example of an irc session in both (please excuse any bad language!):

http://disgu.st/~max/terminal_windows_xp.png
http://disgu.st/~max/terminal_windows_seven.png

Additionally, in windows XP I am given a great number of extra font size choices (e.g. 6, 9, 12, 14 etc) on almost all of the SecureCRT fonts, where as in windows 7 I get only one or two on most fonts (10).

[miked]

Version 6.2.3 doesn't officially support Windows 7, and that may explain the difference.

Can you upgrade to SecureCRT 6.5 to see if you get the fonts you're wanting?

You can check the upgrade reference page and your license purchase date (shown in Help / About SecureCRT) to see whether this would be a free upgrade for you.

[maxg]

Just upgraded to 6.5 on both, and the issue persists.

It seems like if I open notepad on either and change the font to Terminal, they are both as different in the previously mentioned screenshots. That being said, on Windows 7, notepad gives the font option of "System" 10pt, which as far as I can tell is identical to what I want, it just doesn't show up in SecureCRT

Does your terminal font look the same as the XP screenshot I provided?

[miked]

Does your terminal font look the same as the XP screenshot I provided?

Yes. The letters 'b' and 'd' are good indicators. The windows shot of SecureCRT on Windows 7 has different looking 'b' and 'd' letters.

Font scaling could be part of the problem, especially since the window sizes are different (39 rows 200 columns; 40 rows, 125 columns).

What are the SecureCRT On resize settings in Session Options / Terminal / Emulation?

What happens if you make the two windows the same size?

[maxg]

I've always used "Synchronize view to size", and while the screenshots were different sized, I normally have SecureCRT full screened in a portrait oriented monitor at 1050x1680, and the problem persists.

As the issue is happening in notepad as well, this may be beyond the scope of SecureCRT. I guess a better question would be what are the requisites for making a font show up in SecureCRT's options, as my system seems to have fixed-width fonts that aren't available.

[maxg]

Updated the screenshots to show the same man page/same size window, as well as the font options.

[miked]

If the font is fixed-width and registered properly with Windows then it should work. It sounds like your Windows 7 may be missing some fonts. I'm not familiar with the Windows 7 font manager, but here's a link that may provide relevant information about Microsoft Windows 7 and fonts.

If you run the command fonts at the Windows 7 start menu, do you see Terminal listed?

Can you copy your SecureCRT session from Windows XP to Windows 7 to see if the exact same session looks different on XP and Windows 7?

The sessions' .ini files are located in a folder named Sessions, inside the SecureCRT configuration folder. The configuration folder location is specified in Global Options / General.

[maxg]

The font shows up as installed just fine as seen here:

http://disgu.st/~max/terminal_fonts.png

Below is an example of the fonts in notepad:

http://disgu.st/~max/notepad_terminal_font.png
http://disgu.st/~max/notepad_system_font.png (The system font, which looks like what I want, does not show up in the SecureCRT font options).

As I have a very large number of sessions, when I migrated over, I just copied the entire Application Data folder for SecureCRT, which seemed to copy all the settings just fine.

[maxg]

The more I look into this, the more confusing it seems to become.

I copied dosapp.fon ("Terminal") and vgasyst.fon ("System") from Windows XP to a temporary directory. I then copied the same fonts from the Windows 7 winsxs folder to another temp directory.

Both fonts are identical to their windows XP counterparts, both visually and in size.

http://disgu.st/~max/dosapp.fon.png
http://disgu.st/~max/vgasyst.fon.png

So, why, when using SecureCRT in Windows XP (and for you Windows 7) with the "Terminal" font, is it actually displaying the "System" font?

And why does "System" not show up in my font options for SecureCRT?

[maxg]

On closer inspection, "System" is not a fixed width font, so what the heck is SecureCRT using when you select the "Terminal" font?

[miked]

When the SecureCRT fonts are populated, SecureCRT sends a request to Windows asking which fixed width fonts are available. The names you see correspond with a Windows font family, but beyond that I can't tell you which font is being selected. Since my default Windows 7 fonts appear different than yours I'm also at a loss for what could be happening on your Windows 7 machine.

I have noticed that the Terminal font seems to have different characteristics depending on the size of font selected. For example, the Terminal 9 and 10 point fonts have a different looking letter 'd' than the Terminal 12 point font.

Have you tried using Terminal '9' point font, or typing in the number 10 in the Size box?

[maxg]

Originally Posted by miked

When the SecureCRT fonts are populated, SecureCRT sends a request to Windows asking which fixed width fonts are available. The names you see correspond with a Windows font family, but beyond that I can't tell you which font is being selected. Since my default Windows 7 fonts appear different than yours I'm also at a loss for what could be happening on your Windows 7 machine.

I have noticed that the Terminal font seems to have different characteristics depending on the size of font selected. For example, the Terminal 9 and 10 point fonts have a different looking letter 'd' than the Terminal 12 point font.

Have you tried using Terminal '9' point font, or typing in the number 10 in the Size box?

Well, as seen here, the default font used by the cmd:
http://disgu.st/~max/windows_seven_cmd.png
"System 8x12", is what I want, is fixed width, and seems to be installed in Windows just fine, I just don't know how to get SecureCRT to register it as a usable font.

Changing the "Terminal" font size for me, doesn't actually change the font until I hit the next size in the list. e.g. 9 is a new size, 10 is the same as 9, 11 is the same as 9, 12 is a new size, 13 is the same as 12 and so on. Once you type in the number and hit OK, it will say "Terminal 10pt" or "Terminal 11pt" but both look identical in size to Terminal 9pt.

[miked]

When the SecureCRT fonts are populated, SecureCRT sends a request to Windows asking which fixed width fonts are available. If SecureCRT doesn't see the font then Windows is not reporting it as a fixed-width font. Again, in my testing, the Terminal font in SecureCRT looks the same on XP and Windows 7.

I don't know why we're seeing differences, but think the other differences you're seeing (in Notepad) lead you correctly to suspect the problem goes beyond SecureCRT. In your Notepad window shot from a previous post I saw that you have a font named Trajan Pro, which is not a font my default Windows 7 Ultimate has installed. If you have you installed any other fonts or font programs, that could explain the differences we see.

If you have a plain, default Windows 7 installed on a clean machine then I'd think we would see the same fonts. If it was an upgrade, that could explain the differences we see.

Does anyone else have any ideas or know more about Windows 7 fonts or how to get default Windows 7 fonts back?