Terminal Services and ClearType

Over the last couple of weeks, we have had some customers asking about support for ClearType in a Terminal Services session.  Now, if you’re not sure what exactly ClearType is, the ClearType information page on the Microsoft site has information on the basics of ClearType.  In a nutshell though, ClearType is a software technology that improves the readability of text on computer screens.  Beginning with Windows Vista, RDP supports ClearType.  Enabling ClearType in the RDP connection is straightforward – run MSTSC.EXE to bring up the Remote Desktop Connection, click on the “Experience” tab and check the box for “Font Smoothing” as shown below:

If you look at the images below you can see the difference in the quality of the fonts.

Without Font Smoothing	With Font Smoothing

An important point to keep in mind is that the Font Smoothing only works when connecting to a Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 machine.  The client machine can be a Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server or Windows Vista machine, but they must be running the updated Remote Desktop Client that provides support for font smoothing.

There is more on this topic on the Terminal Services Team Blog .

On a quick administrative note, July 4th is a holiday so we won’t be posting again till July 8th.  Until next time …

- CC Hameed

Share this post :