How to install fonts without admin right
Aug 10th, 2008 by David
In Windows, you can’t install new fonts if you don’t have admin rights. Microsoft have made it extremely difficult for normal users to install fonts. As all the Fonts in Windows live peacefully in C:\Windows\Fonts, which is only writeable by Administrators or elevated privilege account owners
So, how can we install fonts without having to ask for Admin rights? Well, thanks to Tsukasa, there’s a workaround. He has developed a tool called Registerfont (You can download here or here or here or here)
What this tool actually does is that add a number of fonts to your font cache which do not need to use an elevated user account. How to use this tool is very simple.
- Just download the above file.
- Extract it to anywhere you can have access.
- Go to Command Prompt and type “registerfont add font1.ttf font2.ttf font3.ttf … font1000.ttf”
What if you don’t even have access to command prompt? Well, then, you can create shortcut by right clicking on Registerfont.exe, choose create shortcut. After that right-click on that shortcut and go to Properties.
Then append the string add with the name of the font file you want to add.
Example : “C:\Documents and Settings\usernamexxx\My Documents\RegisterFont.exe” add font1.ttf
Please note that you have to put Registerfont.exe, its shortcuts and all your fonts in the same folder. That’s it! Once you run the shortcut, you can see that the fonts you added are available to all your favourite Windows applications such as MS Office or Web Browsers.
Oh Grate! Thanks a lot for that tool!
One question if you do not mind. Is there any know tool/way to install a font when you are logged in as a usual user, but you know the Admin user/pass. Kind of Run As… functionality related to font installation. Sure log out/log in as an admin is not the solution I’m looking for :).
Thanks a lot again!