I was a hard sell, but...

... I finally came to see the light about this whole “ClearType” thing. I had tried turning it on when I first started using an XP machine regularly, and it seemed to make things blurry, rather than more readable. So, back off it went.

But Raymond talked about monitor refresh woes on his blog recently - something I have more firsthand experience with. So, when someone brought up ClearType in the comments, I paid attention. He even included a link to this VERY handy tool, which lets you compare ClearType vs. ... well, not ClearType ... right on screen, and lets you fine-tune the settings. Ten minutes later, I was hooked - now my work machines (which run Windows 2003) and my home machines (which run XP) are all using ClearType font smoothing, and my eyes are very happy eyes.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, or if you do but haven't given ClearType a proper test drive before, you owe it to yourself (especially your ocular input devices) to give the tuning wizard a try: https://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/cleartypeactivate.htm

Be sure to keep it on for at least an hour or so before you make a final judgement - my eyes were still pretending it was blurry at first, but after awhile, the differences really started to set in. I can't imagine going back, now.