With the release of Windows Vista six new TrueType fonts will be released. The fonts have exotic names like Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas (monotype), Constantina and Corbela. These six new fonts are optimized for Clear Type.
One of these fonts -Consolas, a monotype font- is made available for users of Visual Studio 2005 (Download here 4.3MB Note: Visual Studio 2005 is a requirement!).
Consolas is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced
font is specified. The installation package sets the default font for Visual Studio to Consolas.
By default the font in VS2005 is set to Times New Roman. At itself a nice font but not for programming. No clear difference between the character '0' and the number '0' for example. For developers the Consolas font is a big improvement.
I really like the Consolas font. I used to be a big fan of Proggy, also a great programming font, but at this moment I prefer Consolas.
Online references:
The next big thing in Online Type at Poynteronline
Microsoft’s ClearType Font Collection at Typographica
Fonts for Programmers at Typographica
Talking about new Fonts on Longhorn (video) at Channel9