Powershell 4.0 hates Lucida Console and switches to raster fonts
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/07/25

PowerShell 4.0 is madly in love with “English (United States)”
A long time ago I started writing up my blog post like this in March 2015 when I bumped into this the first time when upgrading from PowerShell 2 to PowerShell 4:
It seems there is no real workaround:
- [No wayback: Microsoft Connect got ditched] Powershell 4 console font issue | Microsoft Connect.
- [Wayback] Cannot change powershell default font to Lucida Console – Super User.
- [No wayback: Microsoft Connect got ditched] Console host does not allow font adjustment in V3 | Microsoft Connect.
Good and not so good news: after reading the below linked posts, this is what works:
- PowerShell 4 and up works fine with any [Wayback] Lucida Console size (including 12) and boldness
- only when the “Language for non-Unicode programs” is set to “English (United States)”.
- PowerShell 4 works fine with [Wayback] Consolas on any size and boldness
- for any “Language for non-Unicode programs”
So if you’re like me and switch between “Dutch (Netherlands)” and “English (Ireland)” a lot (both use the EURO as currency, but have distinct enough other locale settings to cover a lot of European stuff) then you need to get used to the Consolas font.
Source:
- [Wayback] Setting the font of a PowerShell console to Lucida Console won’t work | Emil’s Lost & Found Archive
- [Wayback] Unable to set the default PowerShell font to Lucida Console – markwilson.it
Edit 20210930: a possible solution
I need to fire up some old systems having PowerShell v3 or v4 on them to test the below possible solution.
Digging for [Wayback/Archive.is] “806286/powershell-4-console-font-issue” – Google Search and [Wayback/Archive.is] “746647/console-host-does-not-allow-font-adjustment-in-v3” – Google Search, I found [Wayback/Archive.is] [Forum FAQ]Solution for Windows PowerShell console font issue when changing system locale
Solution
To resolve this problem, please follow the steps below:
- Access to the path below to find the shortcut of Windows PowerShell: %systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\System Tools.
- Right click Windows PowerShell and choose Properties.
- Switch to Options, check if Current code page list there, if that it is, choose 437 (OEM-United States) and click Apply. Maybe you will encounter an Access Deniedpop-up as the following picture. Then you need take ownership of current PowerShell File, switch to Security Tab and obtain full control permission for current User Account. Note: if Current code page was not list there, just leave alone Options settings and switch to Font Tab.
- Switch to Font Tab, choose the font you wished to use, click Apply.
- After the above settings, current Windows PowerShell console font should works as you wished.
Applies to
- Windows PowerShell 3.0
- Windows PowerShell 4.0
–jeroen
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