How do I change the font that Windows uses?

I do need to point out that if all you're trying to do is make text bigger, there's a different, simpler approach outlined in How can I make the text on my screen larger?

To start, know that font used "on the screen" is actually several separate settings. The text in a menu might be different than the text in a window caption and those might be different than the text in the content area of a window. If you want to change them all and have a consistent look, there's a bit of work ahead.

Right click on your desktop and click on Properties and you should get something similar to this:

Click on the Appearance tab to get this:

And finally click on the Advanced button for this:

To get to this same dialog in Windows Vista:

• Right click on the desktop

• Click on Personalize

• Click on Window Color and Appearance

• Click on the Advanced button

If you now click on the drop down list labeled Item: you'll see a list of items that should be similar to this:

These are the items whose appearance you can control. If you click on one of those, then the nearby controls labeled Size, Color and most notably Font, among others, will enable if that setting can be adjusted. For an item where the fonts can be selected, you'll see that the Font drop down list is most likely chock-full of fonts for you to chose from.

Be careful! You can certainly select a font that, if accepted, could render all your text unreadable. Take a little time, experiment a little, and see what works best for you.

In most cases, what works best is, of course, doing nothing.