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We have a user who requests that we install a specific character font on a Windows terminal server (Citrix, in fact, on 2008 R2).

That font is not free and installing it in each server in the farm will require us to pay for the font for each user.

Is there a way to install a font on a terminal services server so that only some users will have access to it?

Bryan
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Stephane
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2 Answers2

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There's certainly no "supported" way of doing this natively in Windows. However, there are some interesting workarounds using 3rd Party apps mention here:

https://superuser.com/questions/118025/using-custom-fonts-without-administrator-rights

In particular, the portable apps solution looks interesting.

Alternatively, depending on your XenApp setup, would it be feasable to just install the font on one or two servers and point the specific users only to those boxes? Obviously all users would occasionally get it, but that may be acceptable.

Community
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Dan
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    Thank you very much: I believe you've pointed me in the right direction: I check the registerfont app (http://blog.tsukasa.eu/2008/04/18/temporarily-register-fonts-using-a-normal-user-account) source code and found the AddFontResource API which should solve my problem nicely :) – Stephane Jul 25 '13 at 08:15
  • @Stephane Oh, that looks neat! One to remember – Dan Jul 25 '13 at 08:25
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The quickest and easiest solution is to install the fonts normally, and then set the permission on the font files accordingly.

Roman
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    Do you know if this works? I don't think you can set permissions through the GUI, which leads me to believe it could be a bad idea. – Dan Jul 25 '13 at 08:01
  • Huh? Fonts, in the end, are regular files residing in WINDOWS/Fonts/. – Roman Jul 25 '13 at 08:04
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    You still can't set permissions to files in this folder through GUI: if it is possible at all, you would need to go though the command-line or API. – Stephane Jul 25 '13 at 08:07
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    You're over simplifying - Fonts are installed, and while they do reside in 'Windows\Fonts' the GUI isn't a normal Explorer window. Additionally, simply copying files to that folder (For example, if you did it offline) won't install the fonts. – Dan Jul 25 '13 at 08:08
  • Well, i'm just fresh out of a 2k8 box right now, but we did this back in 2k3. Will confirm later. And just because it's Explorer switches to a different view by default doesn't mean it's different. And surely it would be possible to set this trough a GPO, so.. – Roman Jul 25 '13 at 08:16
  • @Roman My question wasn't rhetorical, I'd genuinely be interested to know if it works Post 2k3 – Dan Jul 25 '13 at 08:23