in NT4 and later fonts are parsed in kernel mode
Sometimes I feel like I must be the only geezer remaining who actually had the opportunity to use NT 3.51, so let me tell you: It was a GLORIOUS operating system.
EVERYTHING was client/server, and all the client stuff ran in Ring 3/User Mode.
Heck, you could even kill Windows, and run it as a multi-user "DOS" box.
But, of course, that meant that the video/graphics subsystem also ran as a client service, in User Mode, which [I guess] the suits perceived as being "slow", and therefore as being an impediment to the gaming experience which would come with the impending merger of code bases that we now know as Windows XP [2001].
So in 1996, some genius at MSFT decided to throw out all of the beauty and elegance and stability and security that had been NT 3.51, and to serve up, instead, the great big steaming pile of sh!t which was NT 4.0 [with its video/graphics subsystem subsumed into the kernel].
And the world was never again the same...