Group Policy - Fonts

[MarkBerridge]

Good afternoon, can anyone recommend the best way to deploy fonts to windows domain devices using Group Policy? Is there a recommended way by Microsoft?

[Rob_D]

Not sure of a way with Group Polices (or just group policy settings), but we use this as a startup script. It takes a bit of fiddling with file names and such, but then it only installs new fonts so very little overhead to leave it running all the time.

You just need to change "stfFontSourcePath" to the fileshare where your fonts are to be installed from.

 

I don't think MS have any real best practise beyond manually double clicking on the file - but I've never looked that hard.

 

Option Explicit
on error resume next
' Installing multiple Fonts in Windows 7

' [url]http://www.cloudtec.ch[/url] 2011



Dim objShell, objFSO, wshShell

Dim strFontSourcePath, objFolder, objFont, objNameSpace, objFile



Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")

Set wshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set objFSO = createobject("Scripting.Filesystemobject")

strFontSourcePath = "\\wds\distribution$\Applications\Dyslexia Fonts"



If objFSO.FolderExists(strFontSourcePath) Then



Set objNameSpace = objShell.Namespace(strFontSourcePath)

Set objFolder = objFSO.getFolder(strFontSourcePath)



For Each objFile In objFolder.files

 If LCase(right(objFile,4)) = ".ttf" OR LCase(right(objFile,4)) = ".otf" Then

   If objFSO.FileExists("C:\Windows\Fonts" & objFile.Name) Then
              
     'Wscript.Echo "Font already installed: " & objFile.Name

   Else

     'Set objFont = objNameSpace.ParseName(objFile.Name)

     objFont.InvokeVerb("Install")

     'Wscript.Echo "Installed Font: " & objFile.Name

     Set objFont = Nothing

   End If

 End If

Next

Else

'Wscript.Echo "Font Source Path does not exists"

End If

 

edit: code tags keep messing with my formatting.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Rob_D

[Stuajnht]

Hi,

I've used the steps from here before: http://blog.the-it-blog.co.uk/2014/05/29/deploy-font-files-via-a-gp-group-policy/

Note, currently seems offline, so here's a copy on web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20150928203850/http://blog.the-it-blog.co.uk/2014/05/29/deploy-font-files-via-a-gp-group-policy/

 

Edit: That page seems to point back to EduGeek: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/96317-installing-fonts.html#post838277

Edited November 7, 2016 by Stuajnht

[Scrambles]

I've been using PS AppDeploy Toolkit to roll out a few fonts we needed on all machines.

This can then be pushed out through SCCM. Might not be the best way to do it but works for us.

 

The package copies fonts to C:\Windows\Fonts\ and then registers them in the registry

A restart is required before it works but this is a part of our task sequence so its not really been an issue for us.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Scrambles
Add additional files

[davido38]

hi

i use this :

 

FontReg - Windows Font Registration & Installation Utility

[sparkeh]

I use Advanced Installer to create an msi (you can create an msi that registers fonts with windows) that's pushed out with sccm (or your favourite app deployment solution). That way you get some monitoring on if it's been successful .

[MarkBerridge]

Thanks for your help everybody, I will have a look at the options given and let you know of my outcome.

[minimoo]

Hi Guys,

 

Whats the purpose of this ?

 

As i've got an app i've been using for a few years that might be useful here

 

When we moved from Windows XP to windows 7 - we hit the need to allow users to add fonts (in media) for their design wrok. That needs admin rights, and we didn't want to start installing random custom fonts everywhere.

 

Whilst it's arguably could be a security risk (if there's a bug in the ttf handling) I wrote a simple dotnet application that a user could drag a TTF font onto - it would then register it for the current windows session - allowing a student to load publisher/photoshop and access the font their design work. So student has to "load" the fonts each time, and I don't have to deploy random fonts.

 

It might be this is irrelevant for your use case, but thought i'd mention it in case people were interested