Removing - "Read only" attributes from fonts

Question

Almost all my Open Type fonts I have installed on my computer cannot be deleted either from the font folder or from my font management software.

When i try to delete the message "xxxx font cannot be deleted because its in use" comes up. (these are not system fonts)

In my attempt to remedy the problem i have done the following:

I have been able to remove "read only" attributes from fonts by right clicking on the fonts folder found in the windows directory, this helped me remove about 50% of the trouble fonts. (i had to ignore many fonts as i did not have the permissions to remove read only attributes from system fonts and some random fonts i have myself installed.)

seeing that i t thought it was a permission problem and that the remaining fonts are suffering from the 'read only' problem i have tried to change the permissions to the font folder.

to my annoyance there are now simple ways to do this, all my attamps have failed including going into CMD and trying to remove attrib -r+s or trying to delete from CMD the problem fonts. (i got access denied)

dose anyone have any other ideas how to force delete fonts or give me full control over the font folder?

Answer 1

Hi e-raser82,

I would recommend you to set the default font first and then uninstall these fonts.

Refer to the article below for changing the fonts to default.

Change your font settings

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Change-your-font-settings

The following article explains how to delete the fonts.

Install or delete fonts

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Install-or-delete-fonts

Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

Additional info

i have run my system in safe mode and this done not change anything, also it appears to affect well over 20% of my fonts, all of the affected are otf (open type) fonts

(cannot edit my last entry for some reason?) got a pop up with a exclamation mark and no text)

Answer 3

no takers?

could i remove my harddrive and mount it on another system?

would i have the ability to delete files through a separate operating system?