[wisty]

Microsoft font rendering is different, not worse.

If you want to make it more like OSX, there's a tuning app here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartypeinfo.mspx

[mitsche]

AFAIK there is no way in Windows to control hinting, which in my opinion is the thing that makes Windows' font-rendering unbearable, especially on displays with a high PPI count.

There's hacks out there, but they're exactly that: hacks. And they don't always work that well.