What is a good programming font that looks good through Remote Desktop?

Question

I guess I've just gotten spoiled with Consolas working on my local development machine. But at work we do a lot of development remotely via Remote Desktop, where any fonts requiring ClearType look awful.

I mean, look at this:

Normally I'm not a big fan of Courier New, but in this scenario it beats Consolas, along with all the other otherwise great-looking programmer fonts I've found (which all seem to require ClearType or some other rendering effect that apparently isn't available through Remote Desktop, at least from Windows XP) hands-down.

Can someone suggest any high-quality fonts suitable for programming that will still look good through Remote Desktop?

Evacuation

I've never had this problem - what OS is the are you running (both locally and remotely) and what application are you developing in? – Stripy

@Dave: locally: XP, remotely: Windows Server 2008. And we're developing using Visual Studio 2008. – Evacuation

I've never had a problem with Remote Deskop through XP, but then again I don't like Consolas or Courier New. Give Andale Mono (9pt) a try, see if it helps. – Class

@Juliet: Well, turns out the real problem was just that I'm an idiot... that is a very nice font, though; thanks! – Evacuation

Answer 1

Follow this guide - perhaps it's just a configuration issue:

http://www.ytechie.com/2008/12/cleartype-in-remote-desktop-with-xp.html

The above guide shows you how to do this for every windows OS supporting clear type.

Dave

Stripy

Wow, I could've sworn I had tried those options before! Guess not... thank you very much for kindly steering me in the direction that should've been obvious. – Evacuation

No problem at all - I suppose it's only obvious if you know how. Glad to help. – Stripy

Answer 2

Since i've found ttf version of terminus, i'm using it on windows boxes without ClearType.

Stoltzfus

Answer 3

Cause For Me

Missing windows desktop experience in server 2012

Fix

I had this same issue until adding the missing feature 'desktop experience' in server 2012.

It looked terrible, just like your screen shots.

Install Desktop Experience

To add this feature to server 2012 with powershell run the following command:

Install-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience

That completely fixed the issue for me in all browsers/fonts, hope it helps someone else out there.

Plugboard