This is from a customer escalation esc# 1-17241052 case# 65028921.
CU is on JDK 1.4.2_10
The following test case demonstrated that setting anti-aliasing hints works
for Swing but not AWT components.

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class aafont {

  private static MyJTextField jTextField1 = new MyJTextField();
  private static MyTextField TextField1 = new MyTextField();


  public static void main(String[] args) {
jbInit();
  }

  private static void jbInit()
  {

    jTextField1.setText("WWW SWING - TextField");
    jTextField1.setBounds(new Rectangle(220, 70, 175, 30));
    jTextField1.setFont(new Font("Arial", 0, 24));

    TextField1.setText("WWW AWT - TextField");
    TextField1.setBounds(new Rectangle(10, 70, 175, 30));
    TextField1.setFont(new Font("Arial", 0, 24));


    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Font");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    JPanel panel = new JPanel();
    frame.getContentPane().add(panel);

    JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
    panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
    panel.add(jTextField1, null);
    panel.add(TextField1, null);

    frame.setLocation(100,100);
    frame.validate();
    frame.pack();
    frame.setVisible(true);
  }
}

class MyTextField extends TextField {
    public void paint(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
g2d.setRenderingHint(
             RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
             RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
super.paint(g);
}
  }


class MyJTextField extends JTextField {
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
g2d.setRenderingHint(
            RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
            RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
super.paintComponent(g);
    }
}