Installing and removing TrueType fonts is easy in Windows 95. You just drag font files in and out of the Fonts folder.

But if you dual-boot between Windows 95 and Windows 3.x or NT, maintaining duplicate font files for each operating system wastes disk space. Keeping all the fonts in one place is far more efficient.

Fortunately, you can.

First, decide where you want to keep all your font files; create a new folder if necessary. Then, in Windows 95 or NT 4.0, open the Windows\Fonts folder and select the fonts you want to move. Use the right mouse button to drag the fonts to the new location, and choose Move Here from the pop-up menu. (If your fonts are already where you want them--such as in their previous location in another version of Windows ù skip these steps.)

Caption: Drag fonts to a new folder, then back to the original Fonts folder to create Shortcuts

Select the fonts in your new folder, and use the right mouse button to drag them back to the Fonts folder ù but select Create Shortcut(s) Here. The Shortcut arrow on each icon in the Fonts folder tells you that the originals are elsewhere.

Some surprises remain. If you view the Fonts folder in Details view, you'll see the file size of the original font (not a small size, as you would expect for a Shortcut). If you right-click and choose Properties, you get information about the font itself, not about some Shortcut file. And if you list the contents of the Fonts folder in a DOS window, you'll see no Shortcuts and fewer files than you'd expect. That's because Windows has merely updated the location of the fonts in the Registry; what you see in the Fonts folder is hocus-pocus to let you know what fonts are installed.