blog about graphic design, web design and marketing

The D. Drew Design Blog
14
jul 09

Why Isn't the Windows Drive Name Anti-Aliased?

I'd been wondering about this phenomena for a while now, but couldn't find any information about it online.

Why, in the Boot Camp start-up screen, is the Mac's partition name all anti-aliased and pretty, while the Windows partition name looks all pixelly and ugly?

Exhibit A:


Anti-aliased and pretty

Exhibit B:


Looks like death

There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this. The original explanation I had was that the drive name was standard, and therefore, it probably wasn't text at all, but an image or something instead. That was quickly proven false when I had installed a new hard drive and gave it a non-standard name. Certainly the capability is available, so what gives?

Maybe I'm just picky because I'm a designer, but whether this is Apple's way of making Windows look more unattractive, or if it's just a programming problem, I say bad form. I wouldn't even care if they were both aliased, just as long as they were consistent.

Tags: anti aliasing, boot camp, os x, mac, windows, typography, odd, user interface


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