Can't remove certain fonts in Windows 7

I've just managed to solve this. I uninstalled the problem font via a font management program called NexusFont but I think it will probably work with other programs with a similar functionality.

Found a back door which works, mostly, but there are still some unexplained oddities like Windows thinks the fonts are still installed until a logoff/on cycle is completed, and that if the removed font is later re-installed Windows says the font is already installed, even though it is not displayed in the list. Thankfully applications like Adobe Illustrator see the truth in either case, which is the desired result in any case.

The kludge:

Open two Windows Explorer windows,(for convenience snap them right and left with winkey-left, winkey-right.) On one side access the font folder directly, bypassing the confused Control Panel font manager, with \\machine-name\c$\Windows\Fonts. On the other navigate to C:\Windows\Fonts, which will switch to Font Manager view.

On the FM side, locate each font to be removed, select > properties to get the actual filename, and then delete that file from the other explorer window.

Update: For the C:\Windows\Fonts window, right-click on column heading and you can show the file name (and then click on heading to sort by path!).

matt wilkie's solution works. There's an even easier way in Windows 8, though. Simply open an elevated command prompt as administrator and enter the following command:

del /f /s /q /a "C:\Windows\fonts\my-font.ttf"

That will force delete the file and that's it. Please also note, that a restart might be required after editing it if the font doesn't work (mostly due to the confusion with font families if you have multiple types of the same font)