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Cannot delete fonts in Windows 8

You might run into an issue where you’ll be unable to delete fonts in Windows 8.

I have recently installed additional Helvetica font that was required by some .PSD I needed.

After I while, I have noticed that font has changed on both IE and Chrome browsers on some pages. Because I didn’t like the change I tried to delete the font from Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Fonts

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to delete the font and did receive this message:

Delete Font: Helvetica cannot be deleted because it’s in use.

I have tried by closing all programs but I just couldn’t delete it.

So here’s how to delete it:

Found out the font file name from \\%machinename%\C$\Windows\Fonts

Right click on the Font name, for instance Helvetica and click properties.

Font file name for Helvetica is 18836_HELR45W.ttf

To delete the file, even though it’s in use we have to run Command Promt in elevated mode (Run As Administrator)

Type the following command:

del /f /s /q /a “C:\Windows\fonts\18836_HELR45W.ttf”

This command will force the deletion of the read only file and delete it from all subdirectories if available.

Now the only thing to do is to restart your machine because the font will still be in use until you restart the computer.

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