Symptom

Some users have found that certain fonts they use are missing after upgrading to Windows 10.

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For example, if the English (or German, Spanish...) version of Windows 10 was installed, then the Gautami, Meiryo, Narkism... font is missing.

Cause

Many fonts that shipped in prior versions of Windows have been moved into optional features in Windows 10. After upgrading to Windows 10, these optional features may not be installed on your system. The result is that the fonts in those optional features will not be present.

If you need to use a font in one of these optional features, any of them can be installed on any Windows 10 system, as explained below.

Background

Since Windows Vista, every Windows system has included all Windows fonts. Windows supports many languages, and many of the fonts are intended primarily for use with particular languages.

For example, the Meiryo or Raavi font can be used for English, but they were added to Windows to support other languges: Meiryo was created to support Japanese; Raavi was created to support Panjabi or other languages written in Gurmukhi script. Most English (or German, Arabic, Ukrainian...) speakers don't use Gurmukhi or Japanese writing, but they still would all have these fonts on their system, and many others intended for particular languages.

Having fonts that aren't needed or being used provides no benefit, but they take up system resources and clutter up font lists with options that have no relevance. In order to optimize system resources and user experience using fonts, many fonts that were included in Windows 8.1 were moved into optional features in Windows 10. A comprehensive list of the font families in each of the optional features is provided below.

All of these fonts are organized into optional features that are associated with particular languages. For example, the DaunPenh, Khmer UI and MoolBoran fonts were all designed primarily to support Khmer, and are now in the Khmer Supplemental Fonts feature.

While all these international fonts have been moved into optional features, every Windows 10 system still includes fonts that provide comprehensive coverage of international languages and the Unicode character encoding standard. So, you don't need any of these optional features installed if, for instance, you occasionally browse in Edge to sites that have Chinese, Hebrew or Tamil text.

In addition to these fonts from previous versions of Windows, there are also some new fonts added in Windows 10 intended for use with English and other European languages that are included in an optional feature, Pan-European Supplemental Fonts. (See below for details on the fonts provided with this feature.) This optional feature does not have any language associations. If you'd like to use these fonts, you'll need to manually install this optional feature, as described below.

Automatic installation of optional font features based on language associations

As described above, most of the optional font features have particular language associations. These are automatically installed if you installed the associated language version of Windows. For example, if you do a clean install or upgrade using the Thai version of Windows 10, then the Thai Supplemental Fonts feature will be automatically included during the setup.

The language-associated font features are also installed automatically based on other language settings. In particular, if you add a language into your user profile (which is the same as enabling a keyboard for the language), then any association optional font feature will be installed automatically at that time.

When upgrading from Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, language settings that were configured prior to the upgrade will also be detected during the upgrade, and any associated optional font feature will be installed during the upgrade. Similarly, if you add a user with an existing Microsoft Account that has roamed settings that were originally configured on a Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 system, when the language roam into the Windows 10 system, any associated optional font features will be automatically installed.

If upgrading from Windows 7, keyboards for additional languages that were enabled on the Windows 7 system will be detected and used to configure language settings in Windows 10. At this time, associated optional font features will not be automatically installed during the upgrade process. However, some time after the upgrade is complete, a maintenance task will detect the language settings and install the associated optional font features. It may take a few days before this happens. Until then, you can always install any optional font feature manually using the steps described below.

Installing optional language-associated features by adding a language to your settings

If you want to use some of the fonts in an optional feature and you know that you will want to view Web pages, edit documents or use apps in the language associated with that feature, then you should add that language into your user profile. This is done in Settings; here are the steps, using Hebrew as an example:

• Click the Start button.
• Click Settings.
• In Settings, click Time & language.
• Click Region & language.
• If Hebrew is not included in the list of languages, click the '+' icon next to Add a language.
• Scroll to find Hebrew, then click on it to add it to your language list.

Once you have added Hebrew to your language list, then the optional Hebrew font feature and other optional features for Hebrew language support will be installed. This should only take a few minutes.

Note: The optional features are installed by Windows Update. You need to be online for the Windows Update service to work.

Also note: If you are on a work machine, some businesses manage updates separately, in which case the optional features might not install. If that's your situation, please get help from your system administrator.

Installing optional features independent of language settings

Any or all of the optional font features can be installed manually without needing to change language settings.

If you want to install all of the optional font packages and are running version 1607 (build 14393) or later, there's a link in the Fonts control panel to allow you to do that. (In earlier Windows 10 versions, you'll need to add each of the optional features separately, as described below.) Here are the steps:

• Open the Fonts control panel:
  • Method 1: Click the Start button and type 'fonts'; a link to the Fonts control panel should appear in the Start menu.
  • Method 2: Open the Run dialog: press Win+R, or right-click on the Start button and select Run. Then enter 'fonts' and enter.
• In the left pane of the Fonts control panel, click the link 'Download fonts for all languages':
  

You can also install individual font features. Here's how—I'll use the Hebrew Supplemental Fonts feature as an example:

• Click the Start button.
• In Settings, click System.
• Click Apps & features.
• Click on the link, Manage optional features.
• If 'Hebrew Supplemental Fonts' is not listed among the installed features, click on the '+' icon next to Add a feature.
• Scroll to find 'Hebrew Supplemental Fonts'. Click on that item, then click on Install.
• Click on the back arrow in the upper corner of the window.

You should see the Hebrew feature in the list as installed or in the process of being installed.

After installing optional font features, the fonts should appear in the Fonts control panel and in font-picker lists. Some apps might not detect the change until the app is re-started. If you still don't see some of the fonts, sign out and sign back in. A reboot should not be required.

Note: The optional features are installed by Windows Update. You need to be online for the Windows Update service to work.

Also note: If you are on a work machine, some businesses manage updates separately, in which case the optional features might not even be visible to you—when you go into Add a feature, you might not see the optional features listed. If that's your situation, please get help from your system administrator.

Fonts included in optional font features

Here's a comprehensive listing of which font families are included with each of the optional font features. Some font families may include multiple fonts for different weights and styles.