Short answer: Windows has always had crappy font rendering. (Though some people like/prefer it for whatever reason. I'm not one of them.) It's going to get better eventually – look at the image for IE9 and FF 3.7.
You may also want to be sure you have Cleartype on.
Maybe it's my own status as a Mac user, but it's almost distracting to see the differences in font rendering between platforms.
It's mentioned later in the thread, but this image explains everything: http://typophile.com/node/70216
Short answer: Windows has always had crappy font rendering. (Though some people like/prefer it for whatever reason. I'm not one of them.) It's going to get better eventually – look at the image for IE9 and FF 3.7.
You may also want to be sure you have Cleartype on.
Maybe it's my own status as a Mac user, but it's almost distracting to see the differences in font rendering between platforms.