If 1280x1024 is too small, why don't you use 1024*768 or even 800*600?

As was pointed out elsewhere here in the thread, a high-rez LCD display works best when the pixels are being pushed to it at a 1:1 resolution.

Another thing to consider about large fonts:

There are many applications where working in a high resolution is an advantage. For instance, 3D rendering, graphic editing, video editing, desktop publishing, that sort of thing. Even audio editing might benefit from being able to have very fine pixel resolution for the application. But then a user who uses those apps might still want to have the menu bars and dialog boxes be fairly big, hence the Large Fonts option.

I agree that the Large Fonts thing is a terrible terrible kludge to this issue, there should just be the overall ability to gracefully scale everything at a low level in the OS. But hey, no one ever accused Microsoft of solving a problem gracefully.

And if the flickering is due to the unregistered message, then I agree, shame on me! I should have registered a long time ago. I promise, next paycheck.