Windows 95 and a Bizarre Case of Font Drag and Drop
About twenty-seven years ago I discovered a quirk in Windows 95 (and 98). To my knowledge, it has never been published. Well, it’s never too late.
Unfortunately, the effect does not persist after you close the window. You can however apply the trick to the taskbar, whose buttons will then use the new font for the rest of the session. As expected, the System properites dialog does not acknowledge the change and can be used to restore the original font.
To showcase the phenomenon I have used the online VMs by PCjs Explorer, but I vividly remember discovering it on my old Pentium 75, so it’s not an emulator bug. I was able to reproduce the glitch also in copy’s website, though the effect is less spectacular because the Internet Explorer addition running on his VM prevents the menu font to be altered. However, the fact that it works further proves that it’s not a fluke. The trick also works in Windows 98. I have not tried further versions, but feel free to experiment and send me your results.
Now, why does this happen? If I had infinite time, I’d love to start a debugger and find out what messages are being sent to the windows, but even a technical explanation would still not solve the mystery of why this behavior was implemented in the first place. Since nobody is here to tell the story, here is my headcanon:
